Report notes peace issues

The National National

IMPORTANT provisions in the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) and the Papua New Guinea Constitution have not been implemented and this has affected the initial preparation for the conduct of Bougainville Referendum, Parliament was told on Thursday.
The Parliamentary Bipartisan Committee on Bougainville Matters (PBCBM) highlighted these among other important issues in its status report on the implementation of the BPA and the referendum.
Committee chairman and Regional Member for Bougainville Joe Lera said the committee, in its findings, noted that both the PNG and the Autonomous Bougainville governments (ABG) had failed to implement important joint government decisions under the BPA.
Lera said the views and findings echoed by the people of Bougainville and the four regions of PNG in the committee’s current 2019 status report was not different from the findings in the previous committee reports and the Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) reviews of 2013 and 2018.
“It is worth noting that the people’s views (in the current status report) are similar to those echoed in the two JSB reviews by both governments,” he said.
“Even the report by the National Research Institute (NRI) also draws attention to some of the issues raised by the people.
“So the fact that people still hold onto these views brings out an important matter that the important provisions in the BPA and the PNG Constitution have not been implemented and this has implications for the preparations for and the conduct of the referendum.”
The committee highlighted a number of issues which needed to be address by both governments.
It provided a number of recommendations, one of which was for both governments to implement the recommendations in the current and the previous status reports on the BPA.
Lera further highlighted that there was not enough awareness being conducted throughout PNG and Bougainville to inform people on what actually entailed in the BPA.
The Referendum is scheduled for Nov 23 on two questions – independence and greater autonomy.