‘No approval for new wards’

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
INTER-GOVERNMENT Relations Minister Pila Niningi has assured Nipa-Kutubu MP Jeffrey Komal that the 20 newly created council wards in Nipa will not be approved.
“If those wards were created without following the due process, then it will not go before the National Executive Council for consideration,” he said.
“For any new wards to be created, firstly you have to establish that the system and process has been followed.
“I will not allow that if the process has not been followed.
“So MP Komal, you don’t have to worry about it.
“The Government system is big enough to correct any flaws in establishing these new wards.”
Komal said on Friday that the new wards had not been endorsed by the Nipa local level government (LLG) council meetings.
“The Nipa LLG president and I are not aware of this,” he said.
“And yet I have the provincial assembly meeting minutes with me that it went through the provincial assembly which the Nipa LLG president and I are not aware of.
“We have enough wards in my electorate and don’t need extra wards. And in this Parliament, we are looking for funding to pay councillors and yet we are creating new wards.”