Harvey-Hall is new Grace Memorial board chairperson

BUSINESSWOMAN and long-time Wau resident, Donna Harvey-Hall, is the new Grace Memorial Secondary School board of management chairperson.
She was appointed on an interim basis last Sunday at the school in Wau, Morobe. 
Another long-time Wau resident, Bruno Pambel, was elected as the chairman of the parents and citizens committee.
They will be interim appointees until they are sworn-in by the provincial education board.
Harvey-Hall is a naturalised Papua New Guinean who runs several businesses including coffee, a guest house and stores in Wau.
The pair was elected by parents and citizens of Wau in a first meeting held at the school after much bickering between students, their parents and the former principal, Ipisa Wanega.
The meeting and the election was overdue, parents, students and teachers said.
In other developments at the problem-ridden school, the new principal, Bruce Nalau, has moved in and is expected to start his new role this week.
Nalau’s arrival at the school has not been easy.
He was forced out of the school earlier in the year by Wanega when he first moved in to take up his new post as directed by the provincial education board.
That prompted parents to take the matter to court to have Wanega removed.
Wanega had taken out a notice of motion to stay a court order of May 30 that had ordered him to leave the school.
The parents, led by Bulolo-Wau local level government (LLG) Ward 9 councillor, Tau Meda, and a community leader, Bruno Pambel, as complainants, went back to court on June 7 to quash the notice of motion.
The two men had argued Wanega had defied the court order and PEB directions to vacate the school.
The Lae District Court ordered Wanega on June 15 to hand over all school properties including school car keys, school cheque book to Nalau, change the signatures on all school accounts, not to interfere with the new principal and that breaching these orders would lead him to being convicted and jailed for six months.