Party to work with union, says leader

UNITED Labour Party (ULP) leader and National Planning Minister Sam Basil says the party is looking at working closely with the labour union for rural development.
“These are the main areas that the party will be focusing on as labour does not cover unions only but any form of labour both in urban and rural areas,” he said.
Basil said ULP had 10 members originally but lost one member in Menyamya MP Thomas Pelika, who passed away.
He thanked Prime Minister James Marape for accepting them as part of the coalition government.
“This party has its strength built on the workers, the registered unions and the hard working people in the rural areas,” Basil said.
He said the party will hold its convention in Markham, Morobe next month after their constitutional review workshop.
“This is to ensure that from the experiences in the past, the executives that will be representing each provinces have to know and understand ULP’s objectives.”
Basil said the party would not accept executives that were hand-picked from anywhere to come in and drive their own agendas not in line with the party’s objectives.
“ULP executives from each provinces and districts would be selected from those people who had representation in their provinces and districts,” Basil said.
He said ULP would be a strong party and would be working closely with its coalition partners to ensuring enough service improvement programme funds are made available to deliver goods and service.