Morobe plans break-away

By ELLEN TIAMU
THE Morobe government wants to secede from the rest of PNG because they say leaders are blatantly breaking the constitution and Morobeans do not want to be part of it.
Starting next month, the provincial government will be out on an awareness campaign explaining to the people of Morobe why they should break away from the rest of PNG and gauging their views. 
Governor Luther Wenge said Morobeans were law-abiding people and were very concerned that the very top leaders of the country were going out of their way to breach the constitution when they should be the last people to do so.
The referendum, set for next year, will gauge the people’s views on whether or not they should secede from the rest of PNG and according to Wenge, by remaining with the rest of the country, the province’s reputation is being tarnished and destroyed with everyone being viewed as a bunch of criminals.
“We Morobeans are ready, we have the resources both renewable and non-renewable and the manpower and compared to Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, we are bigger land and sea mass with a much larger population,” Wenge said.
He said other Papua New Guineans and the international community would be free to move around and conduct business in Morobe but what they wanted was political independence.
“We are asking the PNG government and I think the international community and the commonwealth will agree with us.
“We are not doing it for glory but for solid reasons,” Wenge said.
He said the Lae wharf  was making K1 billion annually and with the government denying fair distribution back to the province, roads in the city and in rural Morobe are deteriorating. 
“We have gold, copper, oil and gas but yet are getting only 2% back from them so we want to own these resources and will look for money to harness and harvest these,” he said.
“It is a hard stand that we are taking but we have to do it.”