Ministers need to push harder

 IT IS imperative that cabinet ministers take the lead in driving the Government’s development agenda.

This will ensure that policy initiatives and programmes are fully implemented and that the bureaucracy walks the political talk.

As it is, many senior bureaucrats and technocrats are average performers who lack the vision, initiative and motivation to take their departments and agencies to higher levels.

It is therefore encouraging to note that several cabinet ministers have realised that unless they take the lead in aggressively pushing the Government’s initiatives and programmes, little or nothing will be achieved during their terms in office.

Two of them, Housing Minister Paul Isikiel and Public Enterprise Minister Ben Micah, have had to search overseas for new development and investment opportunities for their respective organisations.

Isikiel travelled to China last month to negotiate a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with China State Engineering Corporation (CSEC) to develop the proposed housing project at Durand Farm at 8 Mile outside Port Moresby.

The minister is now seeing the first fruits of his labour with the official launching of the project last Friday. 

Indeed, Isikiel was over the moon with the fast response from the large Chinese investor.

Describing the Durand Farm project as a hallmark in providing affordable housing for Papua new Guineans, Isikiel signed the agreement on behalf of National Housing Corporation (NHC) and its subsidiary National Housing Estate Ltd (NHEL), with CSEC and project developer Niule No. 16.

Durand is one of the sites on which 40,000 houses will be built in an attempt to help alleviate the chronic housing shortage in the country.

The housing projects will be fully facilitated under the PPP arrangement through the Build, Sell and Share (BSS) concept.

Under the arrangement, the developer will build on its own strength without any financial obligations to the State while NHC and NHEL will offer the land sites at Durand Farm, National Research Institute and others for the projects.

It is worth noting that the Lae-based Defence Force Engineering Battalion has been engaged by the NHC to carry out initial civil works for the Durand Farm project.

“It is planned for Durand Farm to become a satellite township with its own police station, schools, recreational facilities and shopping centre. 

The houses will range from as low as K100,000 for low-cost houses to K150,000 for medium while high-cost houses will be left open for the market forces to determine,” Isikeil says.

The minister pointed out that the NHC projects would complement the Government’s multi-million home loan ownership scheme with Bank South Pacific.

Meanwhile, Minister Micah has just returned from a trip to New Zealand where he looked at opportunities for PNG to harness that country’s expertise in geothermal and hydro power development. He also searched for opportunities in Iceland last year. 

Micah is a strong advocate of hydro and geothermal power generation and believes PNG has great potential to develop this clean, renewable, cheap and reliable energy source.

The minister admitted however that PNG did not have a clear policy for developing geothermal energy. “At the moment PNG does not have a clear blue print on energy that we have. We don’t have clear policies to develop our resources like geothermal into energy sources.”

According to Micah, the country’s potential geothermal power capacity was 5000 to 6000 megawatts while hydro was more than 10,000 megawatts. 

The minister is proposing an Islands grid that will fully utilise the geothermal energy sources in East and West New Britain and will focus on providing electricity for the region. It will join into the Momase and Highlands grids.

Micah also proposes to amend the laws to enable landowners to become shareholders of the hydro and geothermal power projects.

Ministers Isikiel and Micah have certainly taken the initiative to drive the O’Neill Government’s development agenda for their respective organisations.

However, they need to push their managers to do the hard work so that these projects are full realised for the benefit of the country and people.