Governor looks at reviving charters

 By JAYNE SAFIHAO

GOVERNMENT charters, a normal activity on Long Island once, will be revived.

Madang Governor Jim Kas had revealed this earlier.

Kas earmarked K20,000 as maintenance costs for the 53 rural airstrips in the province in his provincial budget.

He stressed that Long Island belonged to Madang and not Morobe and so his focus would now be on the 3,000-4,000 people who had been missing basic services there.

Kas said government charters to Long Island would be on a weekly basis due to the current hunger situation there because of shortage of food. 

Essential government services, especially health and education, were also lacking badly.

Last week Mathias Korima, a ward councillor from Long Island, said there was no government presence on the island.

He said basic services on the island were provided by the church. 

Government workers had packed up and left the island more than five years ago.

Church workers, especially the Lutheran and the Seventh-Day Adventist churches, provided education and health services for the local people in the province.