Official: Give up complex

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
WEST Sepik administrator Conrad Tilau wants the Wutung Border Administration complex to be handed over to the provincial government to manage.
Tilau said that it was more convenient for the West Sepik government to take over the function of the Border Development Authority (BDA) to manage the complex and movement of goods and people.
“Since that BDA was abolished last month, that complex has to be handed over to us to manage to raise internal revenue collected from Immigrations, quarantine and Customs to carry out developments along the border,” Tilau said.
“Since we are the next level of government, we need to take over of that asset as it is in our province.” The complex was built for K90 million from an Asian Development Bank loan.
Tilau said he wanted the national government to reintroduce border development grants to help officers man the border.
“Previously, the Western and West Sepik provinces used to get such grants to look after the needs of border agency officers like the PNG Defence Force, police, Labour, Immigrations, Customs and the National Agriculture Quarantine Inspection Authority (Naqia) when they were on operations along the border. The grants were stopped when BDA was established in 2009.”