Plight of Manam Islanders drag on

THE Madang provincial government has failed miserably to handle the Manam volcano disaster victims and related issues as its provincial responsibility through five-year MTDS and LTDS plans.
Now that Arnold Amet is the Attorney-General, the people of Madang and the human rights groups worldwide are looking at him to do just that on behalf of the Constitution and the state for the natural-caused disaster displaced citizens.
Lands offices were and still are instrumental in crippling the progress of the resettlement of Manam Islanders for not doing their mandated responsibilities professionally.
The Lands secretary has a share of blame.
National Planning and Finance and Treasury departments also failed to grasp the issue which is now no longer an emergency or disaster issue but a development matter.
They refused to accept the PIP of K15 million on Manam resettlement programme to start this year.
The Manam Islanders are also to be blamed for being arrogant in their general attitude and behaviour towards the mainland landowners which has influenced the rejection attitude by the Madang mainland landowners towards the resettlement near their resources.
The way forward is for all Madang MPs to cooperate to solve the resettlement issues amicably.
Then the Finance Department must allocated K15 million to start the resettlement programme.
Lastly, human rights groups should rally and sue Madang leaders and the state for wilfully ignoring all the accorded rights of Manam human beings as guaranteed by the UN Charter and our Constitution.

Frustrated
Waigani