Improve court services: Masiu

Prisoners serving sentences away from home does not help in their rehabilitation, incumbent South Bougainville MP and Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu says.
He said prisoners escaped custody because they got bored of staying far away from their families which created problems for prison officers.
He said a piece of land was allocated to build a rural holding cell in Buka because Bekut prison was far but nothing had been done.
Welcoming Justice Peter Toliken and law and justice officials to Buin on Monday, Masiu said there should be an agreement between his office and Buka magisterial services to improve people’s service.
“It’s about time we have a memorandum of agreement signed with the magisterial service and South Bougainville MP’s office so that we could work together to make sure that (court) services go right down to the people,” he said
Masiu said they wanted to promote law and justice in the southern region of Bougainville and were willing to work with the Law and Justice Department to build village and district court houses in Siwai and Bana to make it easier for magistrates to conduct court hearings.
Meanwhile, Masiu said he was talking with the Solomon Islands government to open border restrictions for traditional border crossing.
“Although Papua New Guinea had lifted the border restriction imposed due to Coronavirus (Covid-19), movement along the border in the Solomon Islands is still banned because it’s still under a state of emergency,” Masiu said.