Commission to split districts

THE Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) will start the process on splitting districts and MPs have been urged to help in the exercise, Prime Minister James Marape says.
Marape said the Government had approved for the electoral boundaries commission to be established to report on the statistics to qualify the splitting of electorates.
He was responding to Komo-Margarima MP Manase Makiba, who asked when the boundaries commission would start work.
“Government realised the importance of ensuring that our country is adequately represented by Members of Parliament.
“The last successful tabled report was done by EBC in 1997. Since then about five attempts were made to create new electorates but those five reports were not successful and not able to pass through national parliament.
“Those reports have been made redundant. Today in the face of a growing population, especially in 2020, the year of national census, should affirm where our population sits,” Makiba said.
Marape said population warranted a relook at the electoral boundaries.
He said in 1977 the population was around 3million people but today that’s gone past 7million.