Judiciary keen to build better facilities

Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia says the judiciary has an ambitious infrastructure development plan in which a lot of the projects initiated were in the process of implementation.
“Over the first 40 years of independence, the courts have suffered in terms of infrastructure development because of issues the executive government was facing in terms of funding, management of funds and planning.” Sir Salamo said.
“The courts have not benefited much but in 2014, the government gave us, the high court in particular, the responsibility to manage our own infrastructure projects.
“With a very ambitious infrastructure development plan that we had developed in 2008, a lot of the projects initiated are in the process of implementation.”
Sir Salamo said under the current budget arrangement, all the funding for the courts were actually channelled to the judiciary which managed the funds.
He said it developed its own infrastructure programmes and saw the procurement and construction processes of all infrastructure programmes.  “With that background, we started with the major component that is the Waigani complex which is one of the major impact projects that is identified by the government.
“We have plans for three regional locations – the Kokopo, Lae and Mt Hagen court complexes. Land has been secured, designs have been completed and budgets have been submitted waiting for the government for next year’s funding.
“Those are some things that we have planned for the provinces but for others we have upgraded their facilities.”
Sir Salamo said the huge amount of infrastructure development going on at the moment was made possible by the government’s dbecision to allow the court to manage  infrastructure developments.
He said there was a promise by the government that it would provide US$33 million (about K100 million) for the design of the court complexes
“We are waiting for instruments to be signed and funds to be transferred to us so that we can go into construction phase next year.”