Numu move a bold one

EASTERN Highlands’ Governor Peter Numu’s move from Government to the Opposition has been downplayed by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and his deputy Charles Abel as a personal move.
Let it be known that every MP in PNG Parliament is not an individual.
Every MP is representing an electorate or province with thousands of people.
Hence, Numu’s move was not an individual decision and he knew what he was doing.
He is representing thousands of rural people who suffer silently and live in misery while towns and cities are developed at their expense.
You will argue that Eastern Highlands was getting equal amount of developments like others.
However, let me ask these simple questions:

• How many rural folks will use the expensive Goroka Hospital?
• How many rural folks will be using the expensive air terminal with its modern technology such as NID?
• How many rural folks will use the newly-developed Goroka Market when their road conditions and bridges are not there?
• Where do the rural folks get money to sustain themselves when their coffee gardens do not get rehabilitated?

These are but a few questions to ponder when the real people are not cared for almost everywhere in PNG.
I, as an Eastern Highlander and a Papua New Guinean, praise my governor for his bold move.
We cannot pretend the Government is serving the very people it is representing, and that is PNG’s rural population.
Only 20 per cent of our population live and work in cities and towns, while the majority live in rural communities that lack road infrastructures, health and education services, water and power supplies.
It is a wake-up call for Government to refocus its priorities and change its direction.
Put in a bottom-up development structure where rural communities should be a priority from the many loans it gets from loan sharks – that will affect our future generation.
Peter Numu is not a yoyo nor is he power-hungry.
He is a caring and futuristic leader.

Peter Akori