PM allocates four ministries to URP

Main Stories

THE United Resources Party, one of the coalition partners in Government, has welcomed its allocation of four ministries by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
Party leader and Hagen MP William Duma, who was appointed Minister for Public Enterprise and State Investments, said after the swearing-in ceremony at Government House, the four would do their best in their ministries.
In 2012, Duma was appointed Minister for Petroleum and Energy by O’Neill in a 33-member Cabinet.
The three other URP ministers are North Wahgi MP Fabian Pok as Petroleum and Energy Minister, Obura-Wonenara MP Mehrra Kipefa as Labour and Industrial Relations Minister, and Gazelle MP Jelta Wong as Police Minister.
“We’ve been given four ministries,” Duma told The National.
“Any ministry is a ministry and it all depends on who is in charge. And whichever ministries we’ve been given, we’ll do to the best of our ability.”
Pok was police minister in the previous government while both Kipefa and Wong are new faces to Cabinet.
The party won seven seats in the 2017 general election and elected to join O’Neill’s coalition group which had a working retreat in Alotau before the first sitting of Parliament.