Official: Amendment to change provincial governments status

THE National Executive Council (NEC) has endorsed a bill which will be put to Parliament in next month’s session on the amendment to the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Governments.
This was announced at the Provincial and Local Level Service and Monitoring Authority (PLLSMA) workshop on Wednesday.
Authority chairman and Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs secretary Dickson Guina told The National that the bill, once passed, would make provincial governments autonomous.
Guina said once the new organic law on decentralisation was passed provincial and local level governments would be abolished and called local councils.
He said the LLGs would be called local councils and they would be treated as municipal authorities.
“The first changes we will see is that provinces will now become autonomous; they will run their own affairs,” Guina said.
“The national government will look at standards and policies as well as monitoring.”
“Public servants will now be in districts because that’s where the bulk of the people are,” he said.
Guina said there would be housing for public servants in the districts as well as schools and hospitals.
“We will create growth centres in each of the districts so people have access to the services.
“Our people should not be travelling to towns and cities because everything they want will be already in the districts.
“We should have fewer public servants in Waigani and provincial headquarters and everyone should be in the districts, that’s where it matters most,” he said.
Guina said they had consulted with governors and members of parliament on the change.
He said Inter-Government Relations Minister Pila Niningi had sent out a circular to the MPs informing them of the new organic law.