Muthuvel welcomes teams, promises to promote unity during Games

Sports

THE opening ceremony of the 7th  BSP PNG Games in Kimbe, West New Britain brought a lot of pride to the province, says Governor Sansindra Muthuvel said on Saturday.
Muthuvel was applauded like a rock star during the opening ceremony as he welcomed 16 visiting provincial teams.
He assured his visitors of national unity, as a theme West New Britain aims to promote during the duration of the games.
“Welcome to Kimbe and on behalf of my people, I can assure everyone that we will promote national unity,” Governor Muthuvel said.
“I want our visitors to feel at home and live in unity with the people of West New Britain.
“We took the challenge and now we can proudly announce that we have built a stadium to international standard.
“We are proud that we started from ground zero and we have set a new bench mark.
“In fact, this is the hardest PNG Games because we started from scratch and we built these sporting facilities covering the four local level governments starting from Kimbe, Talasea, Mosa and Hoskins.
“The PNG Games Council had faith in West New Britain to host the games we had nothing in place to host such an event of this magnitude however we never turned back after the decision was
made at Kalabond Oval in Kokopo in 2012.
“With West New Britain taking up the challenge, we have seen other small provinces taking up the challenge and putting up their hands to host the games in the future, instead of the major centres like Port Moresby, Lae, Goroka and Kokopo.
“We have used sport as tool for infrastructural development and our motto says it all which is enhancing development through sports.
“The PNG Games has also seen the upgrading of our schools infrastructures where the teams are being based.
“We can see massive transformation in our societies and it is motivating many of our youth to find a place in sports if they are not able to complete their formal education and employment.
“The spin offs and economic benefits attracted is notable from the informal sector to the small medium enterprises and to the big established businesses.
“We had a lot of challenges with two deferrals of the games but we have worked hard to face these challenges with our partners,” Muthuvel said.
The opening and the hosting of the PNG Games also coincides with the 50-year celebration of Oil Palm production in the provinces.