Governors urged to forget impasse

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday 14th Febuary 2012

By ANCILLA WRAKUALE
NATIONAL Capital District Governor Powes Parkop has challenged his fellow provincial heads to effectively address social issues such as HIV/AIDS in their respective provinces rather than concentrating on the political impasse.
Parkop issued the challenge last Friday when presenting funds to the Ginigoada Bisnis Development Foundation and the NCD provincial AIDS council.
Parkop said his fellow governors were not doing enough in parliament and they needed to work harder in addressing such issues.
“They should take the leadership in their own provinces in reducing the increasing HIV infection rate in rural areas,” he said.
Parkop commended the good work of the NCD provincial AIDS committee for reducing the prevalence rate from 2% to less than 1%.
He supported the committee by giving them K500,000 to continue their work in NCD.
Parkop said Port Moresby was the nation’s capital with people from all over PNG and if the NCD AIDS committee could reduce its prevalence, he challenged the governors to do the same in their provinces.
He said the NCD would like to set the standard so that visitors and people in the city did not contract the HIV virus here.
Parkop said they would like to continue the good work of Moresby South MP Dame Carol Kidu, who founded the Ginigoada Bisnis Development Foundation.
Parkop said now that Dame Carol had announced her retirement from politics in the coming election, it was good that they continued to support whatever she had started in NCD such as the foundation.
The Ginigoada foundation was started by Dame Carol in 2002 to empower people in her electorate with basic life skills training.