Call for fairness

Letters

I CALL on the Marape-Steven Government to consider giving a new Central New Britain province to the people of Pomio for very sensitive and justifiable reasons.
Of the seven ethnic groups in East New Britain, only one tribe continues to benefit virtually as well as exclusively from all local opportunities and services in the social, commercial, political and economic spaces while the other indigenous tribes are continuously marginalised outside mainstream development activities.
One can obviously see that all modern developments and services are concentrated around Rabaul, Gazelle and Kokopo where ENB’s one popular ethnic group inhabits.
I ask the National Government to consider the following facts regarding district landmass demarcations and population distribution across the province.
All figures are taken from the 2011 National Census Report.

  • Rabaul has a total population of 39, 387 with a landmass of 95 sqkm and population density of 415;
  • Gazelle has a total population of 129, 317 with an area of 3, 700 sqkm and population density of 35;
  • Kokopo has a total population of 87, 829 with an area of 408 sqkm and population density of 220; and,
  • Pomio has a total population of 71, 836 with a landmass of 11, 071sqkm and population density of 7.

From the above data it can be seen that Pomio alone is 116 times bigger than Rabaul, three times larger than Gazelle and 27 times bigger than Kokopo.
No wonder why the urbanised areas in ENB cover all parts of Rabaul, Gazelle and Kokopo due to their smaller sizes in land area as opposed to the completely remote Pomio where all other six ENB tribes are huddled up.
These ridiculously unfair landmass demarcations have continued to generate unequal distribution of wealth in the province, and on the backdrop of unilateral control of the provincial affairs by one tribal regime, the six other tribes have no hope or place in the current so-called autonomy agenda which, by the way, is being advocated exclusively by this one tribe.
The National Government should grant the poor people of Pomio a separate Central New Britain as a way of emancipating them because Pomio so large enough to be divided into three districts.
Otherwise, I stand to ask the Government to rescind the ENB autonomy bid until all this complex discriminatory regime is dismantled and restructured for a fair, representative society.

Fair ENB Please