Western returns to basics

By GIBSON TORASO
DESPITE hosting one of the biggest copper and gold mines in Papua New Guinea, Western province, according to Governor Taboi Awi Yoto, had achieved very little since Independence and the beginning of the Ok Tedi Mine and his government was planning to roll basic services all over again.
One of the youngest governors in PNG’s political history, along with Eastern Highlands’ Peter Numu, Yoto blamed successive Western leaders and the national government for deteriorating services and the effect it had on his people.
The governor says his government has “nothing fancy, nothing big and only plans to do the basics of maintenance”, adding that for a long time “there has never been a political and administrative stability and unity” and that contributed to the lack of service delivery.
“Disunity in political leadership hindered continuity in policy implementation resulting in existing government services deteriorating and falling apart.”
Yoto said he was planning to rebuild and to do maintenance in rural areas where services had fallen apart.
“Basing on Western development forum pillars, we have to work on the key areas over the next few years to start it all over again,” Yoto said.
“We will rebuild and do maintenance to facilities and infrastructures in agriculture, health, education and socio-economic services. For us it is to start again to empower our people to be economically self-reliant to have money in their pockets and to put food on the table.”
In his government’s plan to improve education and health services in the province, the governor said in few years’ time, Western will have two nursing, two technical and a teachers colleges while continuing to boost infrastructure.
Governor Yoto said he wanted to start on his own page and put his own footprint in the province for people to judge whether it be good or bad.
“We’ll see after few years where we go after implementing our key agendas,” he said, adding that Western had identified development partners to work with to drive development.
They include PNG Sustainable Development Program, Ok Tedi Mine, the national government and non-state actors such as the Catholic health and education services. The partners will have their own source of funding and will work closely with the Fly River government.
Asked if he would investigate missing public funds over the years, Yoto said he did not have the time and money to go back as “it will drag me back instead of moving forward”.
“I don’t have the luxury of money and time to put into such (investigations). When I do this, people will suffer. The focus now is to start deliver the little that I can. Investigating may cost me K1m-K2.5m, money that would be spent on delivering something better.”
The mine started when Western people were not prepared and lacked the knowledge to negotiate for better returns from their resources. According to Governor Yoto, cash handout of mine royalties had made his people lazy and never improved their livelihood.
The governor slammed the new provincial government system and acknowledged that the old system worked well in terms of service delivery.
“This new system had stopped the smooth flow of services, fuelling corruption and misuse of public funds meant for service delivery,” he said.
“Existing services were delivered through the old system with help from the mine. If we have the same system, we would be somewhere in terms of development.”
Yoto complained that the new system was making his province suffer when much of the royalty funds belonging to the Fly River government were being abused and misused.
He also accused the national government of taking advantage of his people’s weakness to park millions of kina belonging to Western with the Mineral Resources Authority that should have been used to deliver services.
The governor said Western received well over K10 billion from the mine since its operation and “we don’t have any mark to prove how that was being spent”.
North Fly MP James Donald supported his governor and said that the Western political leadership and administration were now truly united.
“The greatest failure was there was no unity, coordination and team spirit among the political leaders and the administration and that was the mistake,” Donald said.
“Today governor and us, the MPs are saying that we are united to pool resources together to deliver services. We are going back to the basics of face-lifting rundown services and maintaining them.”
Donald, whose electorate hosts the mine, said in the next 10 to 20 years, they wanted their people to be healthy, educated and economically self-reliant.
He said that meant Western has one development plan and “we are now getting on one boat, dancing to one music to deliver what we think are basics for our people to improve our livelihoods”.
Provincial administrator Robert Alphonse Kayung said, “As a public servant of the State, I am just there to work with the political heads of the province, the public servants and development partners to deliver services.”
Governor Yoto urged his people to change their mindset to be economically independent.
“Land is what we have that makes us independent. On the land, we have many things. We have fish, water, timber as well as other resources so people have to learn to make use of them to improve their living.
“All is to do with our mindset; changing to consider how one could do this and that on the land to be economically self-reliant. That is what we need to think about to do.”
The two MPs said political leaders would not help individuals and would not tolerate any cash handout nor corruption, warning public servants in the province to pull up their socks and work hard to deliver.
They said the political leaders were there to motivate people to improve their lifestyle by providing services that would benefit everyone using public money.