Roads, communication to be improved, says Lelang

By ABIGAIL APINA
THE newly elected MP for Kandrian-Gloucester Joseph Lelang will look at roads, communication and a surveillance mechanism in his electorate to help bring it out of isolation.
Talking to The National, Lelang said he was looking forward to working with other political leaders and was determined to assist the people of West New Britain.
“For the province to develop and move forward, the southern part has to be brought up to a satisfactory standard.
“I will do my best to achieve that in the next five years,” he said.
Lelang said he understood it would be a major challenge as Kandrian-Gloucester was one of the least developed electorates in the country.
He said in the last 37 years there had been hardly any development there in terms of roading network, communication and other basic services, he said.
Lelang said he was prioritising road networks and communication among other services in the electorate, adding that people had been living in isolation, which adversely affected schoolchildren, businesses and other services.
That also affected tourism and agriculture-potential money-generating industries.
He urged other elected members to be sensitive to people’s expectations and needs and to perform to meet the demands.
The fundamental issue of service delivery required addressing as the majority of the people still needed basic services to reach them.
“Public services are not delivering to the people, the government needs to critically assess and redefine some mechanisms to ensure service delivery reaches the people,” he said.
“It does not matter which political leader takes over after every five years, the government systems and mechanisms should be redefined to ensure basic services still reach our people.”