SHP plan talks begin in districts

SOUTHERN Highlands provincial management team held their one-day meetings yesterday in Imbonggu district headquarters to discuss how they would implement the five-year corporate plan for the province.
The meeting was a second time to be held in a district attended by the senior public servants working in the Agiru Centre building including eight district administrators in the province.
Provincial administrator William Powi said yesterday that they discussed ways to implement the five-year corporate plan incorporated into their annual activity plans for the districts and also for the provincial administration.
Powi said AusAID consultants John Simango and John Phil, who were the corporate plan implementation advisers, were on hand to work out the cost of their annual activities when implementing the plan.
He said it was a roadmap for government policies to help public servants ensure effective execution of duties and responsibilities when carrying out the objectives of the five-year corporate plan.
He said, at the same time, he was trying to strengthen the existing government system mechanisms.
Powi said such meeting in the districts were to bring senior managers to the rural areas and allow them to know other district public servants and how services were delivered at that level.
He said that there must be free flow of communication between the senior officers and other public servants so that no one was working in isolation.
He said that he wanted to ensure public servants in the districts know their functions because they were the implementing agents of government.
Three weeks ago, a similar meeting was held in Nipa district.
He said, before the end of the year, a meeting was planned for Koroba.
Imbonggu district administrator Ambe Keleli commended Powi for bringing the senior public servants out into the district to observe performance there.
He said the provincial management team meeting initiated by Powi had strengthened public service delivery machinery in the district and was working very effectively.