Dion stresses essence of planning

DEVELOPMENT partners and other agencies and stakeholders need to understand the essence of all planning documents.
East New Britain Governor Leo Dion made the call during the Department of National Planning and Monitoring roll-out workshop on the development strategic plan (PNGDSP) and medium term development plan (MTDP) in Kokopo last Thursday.
Dion told participants, that the workshop would help them acquire a broader understanding of planning documents and how they relate and link to each other.
He said this would help provinces to be better placed in formulating their own development plans to complement the national strategies and also to ensure consistency.
Dion said departments and provinces were currently undertaking annual programming and budgeting and the workshop should have been undertaken in the beginning of the year so that the plans could influence 2011 budgets.
He said PNG had come a long way in its short political history as far as development planning was concerned.
Dion said, according to available development planning literature, the first planning exercise was undertaken in the 1960s by the colonial administration under instruction from the League of Nations.
He said the plan, however, had never been implemented which showed that PNG was only one of a few countries in the world that had its vision embedded in its constitution.
This, Dion said, provided a concrete foundation for the country and for development planning which also provided the basis for a national planning system.
“A lot of issues that could have been avoided have the inevitable consequence of development progress and have been the result of bad management practices rather than bad planning,” Dion said.
He revealed the ENB government’s ongoing consultation with the Catholic mission for the acquisition of land around Putput in the south coast area, for a major integrated project.
Dion said this project would involve urban development, agriculture, infrastructure, fisheries, tourism and conservation.
He said this area  in the Pomio district would create a multiplier effect on the immediate surrounding and the district.