Create new electorates

I WRITE in response to the recent call by the Minister of Inter-Government Relations Pila Niningi for the Electoral Boundaries Commission to identity and create new electorates in the country.
I think this call is an answer to the pleas of the people of this country who have been oppressed for far too long by the negligence of successive governments to re-visit electoral boundaries.
The current electoral boundaries have been drawn in the colonial era and many of the boundaries have been drawn through arbitrary means.
I think it is a timely call because of the rapid changes in population density and other developments that have taken place over years.
The commission has to consider that by re-visiting electoral boundaries and decide whether to create new electorates, split existing electorates, align and re-align local level governments (LLGs) and other changes.
For example; the Nipa-Kutubu Electorate in Southern Highlands is the most populated.
It is one of the most difficult electorates to manage, given the fact that communities live far from each other and away from government services.
I believe the local MP would allude to the fact that numerous complaints have been made on the difficulties and constraints faced in response to service delivery in Nipa-Kutubu.
As I write, deaths from snake bites, birth complications and malaria are being reported across the electorate, particularly in remote and isolated communities such as Fuya in Mt Bosavi, Inu in Lake Kutubu and Haivaro in Lower Kutubu.
Infrastructure and electricity is another problem in the electorate.
The entire Mt Bosavi LLG has been without a road and bridge since Independence.
It’s a sad story given that just next door, in Kutubu LLG, the lucrative oil project has been in operation since 1992 and the recent PNG LNG project.
The combined population of Lake Kutubu and Mt Bosavi is believed to be around 50 and 60 thousand.
The Electoral Boundaries Commission should consider giving Lake Kutubu and Mt Bosavi the first priority.
Lake Kutubu has been a strategic hub for trade between the southern coast and the central highlands since the time of our ancestors.
At the moment, it is still central to the country’s first oil project and PNG LNG project.
The Kutubu men have given a rather cool reception to the missionaries, anthropologists and geologists since the 1920s and up until the 1990s and Papua New Guinea’s economy rode on the back of Kutubu’s rich crude oil.
The community leaders of Kutubu, have not entered into a discussion with the state and developers too like what is happening in Afghanistan and the pleas for better service delivery were overlooked by the state.
Thus, it is past time the Government looked into this issue as a matter of urgency and give Kutubu and Mt Bosavi a separate electorate.

Mike Haro