Kora: Road funding a govt priority

By FRANK RAI
FUNDING for rural road networks around the country is one of the priorities of the government and the Department of National Planning and Monitoring is set to implement that, Dr Peter Kora said.
Kora, secretary of the department, said that while addressing a remote village in the Wain Erap local level government council area of Nawaeb district, Morobe, during a visit with local parliamentarian, Gisuwat Siniwin on Saturday.
Kora was invited by Siniwin to see the roads in the LLG. 
Kora told more than 500 people at Sikilan village that the O’Neill government’s priority was roads, jetties and airstrips, apart from health, education, rural communication and electrification.
After travelling on a 100km dirt road from the Erap Boys Town turn off on the Highlands Highway and up the Busu-Baidong road to reach the village, Kora was prompted to outline the policies.
“Nawaeb district received K20.4 million of development grants in the past five years and there is nothing here to show,” he said.
“I am really sorry to see that.”
He invited all Morobean parliamentarians to work closely with him to deliver vital services to the respective districts and the province.
Kora said he was open to working closely with all parliamentarians to deliver the government’s policies.
 to the least developed areas of the country.
He was responding to a public announcement in Markham district on Friday by Housing and Urban Development Minister Paul Isikiel during a hand-over ceremony that the department would have a new secretary.
Isikiel told more than 5,000 people that one of his officers would become the new Secretary for National Planning and Monitoring.
Kora said he had no grudges with any Morobe MP but the announcement was improper because he had not yet received any correspondence from the chairman of the National Executive Council, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
He said he was a man of calibre, principle and integrity and the former government took him out from the University of Papua New Guinea and appointed him as secretary.
Kora said the erroneous announcement would only tarnish the name of the government.
He presented K3,000 to the villages as donations to their coffee cooperative society and women’s group.