Speaker’s move irks people

 people in Wewak, East Sepik, have expressed bitterness at Speaker Theodore Zurenuoc’s decision to remove traditional carvings from Parliament.

In a meeting at the Catholic Cathedral in Wewak last Saturday, scores of people, including former politician Sir Pita Lus, Wewak town mayor Charles Malenki, Wewak Island LLG president Pius Bugatar and prominent community leaders told the director of the National Museum and Art Gallery Dr Andrew Moutu that they did not like the speaker’s decision.

“The speaker has probably gone paranoid and needs treatment at the Laloki Mental Health,” Bugatar said.

“He is under illusion that spirits are in the carvings in parliament and cause ill health of our nation. Is every corrupt persons driven by spirits in parliament?

“What the speaker believes will be proven wrong, even after he removes those carvings and totems.”

Customary leader David Ulgu Gai said the removal of traditional carvings from parliament was “viewed as removing our cultural identity as Papua New Guineans from the highest decision-making house on our land”.

“This house has carvings and decorations from over 800 different cultures in the country and to have them pulled down contradicts the efforts the government and many NGO groups are putting in to preserve our culture from foreign influence,” Ulgu said.

He told the gathering that if the government did not like the outlook of the parliament, it should consider erecting a new one and preserve the current one with all the cultural decorations they do not like for the people of Papua New Guinea and \generations to come.

“We have the first house of assembly at Down Town (Port Moresby) which has been preserved. If the current government does not like the carvings and decorations depicting the different cultures of the people who elected them into power then simply build a new one and move on,” Ulgu said.