Bishop: Govt must partner churches to serve people

THE national government must establish a strong partnership with churches so they can help deliver much needed services to the people, a bishop says
“The church provides around 80% of the total services to the people now and it needs the government to make a strong partnership with them so that this can help a lot,” Wabag Catholic Bishop Arnold Orowae said last Friday.
He was blessing the opening of the Pumakos Catholic health centre staff’s duplex house and the voluntary counselling and testing centre in Wapenamanda, Enga.
He said the government must consider the church as its major development partner in the country.
Orowae said decisions-makers must come together and start to recognise the good work of the church.
He said in PNG “people are still waiting to access basic services”.
Orowae said it only needed cooperation from the churches and the government and “this can do a lot to help the country”.
“We say that PNG is rich but this nation is not proving that it is.
“That is because of the performances and delivery of basic goods and services to the people.”
He said to prove that PNG was rich, services must reach places where it had never reached before.
Orowae said for people to change their mentality and behaviour wherever they are “that will only depend on good service deli­very”.