Governor Sir J inspecting remote parts of province

The National National

NEW Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan is travelling onboard the government vessel MV Akalei through the Lak and Kandas areas of Konoagil this week.
He is inspecting some of the most remote areas of southern New Ireland that are reachable only by motorised dinghies and cargo boats.
Sir Julius travelled through those islands more than 50 years ago as a young cargo boat operator.
Before entering politics in 1968, Sir Julius was working in the family business, regularly sailing along the coast and through the islands of New Ireland to cart copra, cocoa and passengers on trips that would take a week or more to complete.
Sir Julius said he felt it was important to meet the people and to get their input into how government policies were working and how those policies should be adapted and improved to meet the needs of the people.
Sir Julius departed his home at Huris by Akalei yesterday morning and called in briefly at Mimias, Morkon, Silur, Siar and Weitin villages in the Lak areas and overnighted at Lambom with village communities, who warmly greeted him in chiefly custom.
He said the people used the opportunity to raise important community concerns with him. Major concerns for the people were the 50 per cent school fees slapped on by the National Government and improvement of health services and infrastructure at Lambom given the scaling down of operations at old Lamassa Health Centre.
The governor also had stops at Lamassa, Kabaman and Nasko, and he overnighted at Pukpuk on Tuesday.
He was to have continued to Palabong and drive to inspect the Kabanut-Palabong road as well as Kabanut School and aid post projects.
He will then drive the rest of the west coast road to Kalili and assess the condition of the road upgrading on the Rasirik-Rapontamon and the Labur stretch through to Kalili.
On Thursday the governor will continue by boat to Lamusmus and back to Kavieng. By that time he will have covered over 400km and five LLG constituencies including Tanir, Matalai, Konoagil, Namatanai, Sentral Niu Ailan and Tikana.