Nurses question decision to sell Gerehu property

By OGIA MIAMEL

THE 17 nurses and their families living at a PNG Nurses Association property are concerned that it will be sold.
They found out last week in a newspaper article that the property at Gerehu Stage 3B in Port Moresby has been put up for sale.
A spokesperson for the tenants, Naki Nikki Joseph, told The National that they were not told of the sale of the property which currently had 17 homes. The government had paid K15 million for the nurses’ accommodation.
“We pay a fortnightly rent of K450 to K550. We pay 2 per cent of our base salary to the union. We were not told (of the sale),” she said.
She said the association should have informed the members about the sale.
“We want to know why they want to sell the property. The sale of these houses is not right,” she said.
Association general secretary Edward Foe said the property had to be sold because it had become a liability to the association.
He said some tenants were defaulting in their rent payments and the association’s national executive committee decided to sell it to pay the bills.
“There are 3000-plus nurses that own that place. The association is run by a constitution and has the absolute authority to make the decision to sell the property,” he said.
“The nurses’ representative in the committee voted for the property to be sold for the benefit of all the nurses in the country.”