Civil groups to receive awareness funds

 ELECTION awareness in East New Britain will gain momentum when the five civil society organisations (CSOs) engaged, receive their funding of K20,000 each this week.

Chairman of the provincial election steering committee Edward Lamur said yesterday these CSOs were ENB ambassadors for peace which will be covering Rabaul district, Motoshimo for Kokopo district, PNG Caritas for Pomio district while Gazelle will be covered by the Vunatakanabeo HIV/AIDS and Disability Group and Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA).

He said the CSOs would now have a duration of about four weeks to do awareness before the issue of writs for 2013 local level government (LLG) elections.

He said, once the CSOs receive their funding of K20,000 each, they would commence awareness on good governance, voting good leaders with leadership qualities who would deliver on grounds of transparency and accountability, early campaigning and educating the people on the LPV voting system.

Lamur said since the awareness programme was funded by the PNG Electoral Commission (PNGEC) through support funding from AusAID, the CSOs would also be doing awareness on cross-cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS.

Lamur appealed to the CSOs to be transparent and neutral in their activities and called on their leaders and the 18 assistant returning officers to work together so that their activities complemented each other’s roles.

He said K1.5 million from the K95,000 funding from PNGEC would be used to conduct LLG elections as all funding have been received from districts and LLGs, however, K180,000 from LLGs would be reserved for the induction and orientation of newly-elected presidents and ward councilors.