Council blamed for no dawn service

FORMER parliamentarian and Madang businessman Sir Peter Barter has expressed disappointment at the Madang provincial events council for failing to organise the annual Remembrance Day dawn service on Monday.
“The day has normally been observed with  a dawn service at the Coastwatchers Memorial Lighthouse and been well attended by those who care and who may have lost a loved one,” he said in a statement.
He said over the past decade, staff of the Madang Resort and other companies had largely organised the event but this year they had failed an important national event.
“Despite numerous attempts to make the leaders and administrators aware of the need to organise the commemorative service I received no response,” he said
“Without administrative support from the national, provincial and local level governments makes it difficult for the private sector to meaningfully contribute.”
A Madang provincial events office spokesman said no official Remembrance Day dawn service was held because there were no funds to organise it.
Mandos Pileng, who has headed the office for more than 15 years, said due to the slow budgetary and finance processes, funding for his office was late and he was not given any to organise Remembrance Day events.
He said that running the office was mostly on an ad hoc basis.