Statistic vital for progress: Secretary

NATIONAL Planning Secretary Hakaua Harry says proper statistics and information must be available to bring about development.
She told the one-day department heads meeting in Port Moresby last Friday that the department was working with others to put together a strategy “on how we can get statistics that are relevant for decision-making, to inform us on how we intend to see development going forward”.
Harry cited the case of keeping teachers back in rural areas.
“We have to bring services to the rural areas,” she said.
“That’s one of our core responsibilities at the national level.
“We have to have a service delivery framework, or whatever the system is, to bring services so that we keep our people in the rural areas.”
She said people working in the rural areas do not need to come to town.
“They do not need to come to town and put a lot of pressure on us at the national level,” she said.
“We talk about building a lot of infrastructure. But we need to talk about being responsible for properly managing our population, or looking at the kinds of services that we have in the rural areas.
“It’s a lot of work that all of us need to work together and it’s good that we have meetings like this, so that we understand what we are doing.”