Build Central town, headquarters now

WHEN John Orea was the Central Governor, he initiated a groundbreaking ceremony to establish a Central provincial township and named it Central City.
This took place at Bautama about 8 km outside of Port Moresby.
I was there at this ceremony and the late Roger Hau’ofa was the master of ceremony.
Soon after this, some permanent buildings were erected particularly for the Central police as their operation centre.
But that was all that was done to this initiative and Central City remains stagnant and non-progressive some 20 years up to today.
As the plan for this project came to a standstill, the National Capital District (NCD) began to expand its boundaries and the land at Bautama is now within its sight and perhaps its ambitions as well for further expansion.
It is unfortunate that all past Governments provided only lip services but have never backed them up with concrete actions to provide funding to assist the provincial government build its own town.
The Central government now remains absorbed within the municipal influence and confines of the NCD Commission and seemingly without its own identity.
The Central government should now look at creating a satellite township at Bautama and move on from there to build its own headquarters elsewhere.
I am suggesting that if it moves eastward from Port Moresby, it could consider the possibility of acquiring land in the plains in areas between Barakau, Seme and Gaire which are appropriate locations.
My second suggestion is that it can move westward to acquire land in areas between Brown River and Vanapa. The advantage of this location is that there are large bodies of fresh water systems that could be utilised.
The only caution it could take is to avoid areas of flood plains where in rainy seasons flooding can be a problem.
The proposed land areas are large and extensive.
A lot of settlers are occupying them.
But genuine land owners can be identified and payments made to them to secure it.
The Central headquarters should not be built close to Port Moresby.
It should be in a another location to display its own unique identity.
If this plan is initiated, the Government should support it with funds and resources to compensate the people whose land and resources in Port Moresby and elsewhere in Central have been indiscriminately taken away from them.
The Central government should not waste any more time and years to act on this matter.
It should make its move now.
If it hesitates and continues to wait, it will run out of land, space and time that now are available to it to take advantage of.

Obeserver