Yari wants to return badge after 48 years

AFTER wielding power and authority to maintain peace, law and order among his people and tribe for nearly five decades with a council badge bestowed on by the colonial masters when elected as a ward councillor in 1970, Ipitango Yari is in Waigani to return the badge to the State and resign from his post officially.
Born on May 5, 1940, Yari was 30 when he became the councillor for Galu ward at the border of Kagua and Erave local level government areas in Kagua-Erave district, Southern Highlands. After serving the state and his people for 48 years, Yari, who was serving in the Erave LLG area, wants to complete his one last mission and that is to return the badge back to the Government, retire officially and be accorded recognition for his services.
The 78-year-old councillor of Waluaperepa tribe has 23 children from six wives although he first tied the knot in a church with his first love. He is a grandfather to 42 children and four of his wives had left him while five of his children passed on. Yari now lives with two of his wives at Galu village.
Struggling to tell his story in pidgin-English, Yari said his contributions and effort put together by the 25 ward councillors of the Erave LLG area had generally maintained peace and order in the area while challenges remain with funding which is the major obstruction to peace and good order among people in rural wards.
After becoming councillor, Yari says he has never gone out of his ward and rarely travels to Erave station for council meetings.
“Since I become councillor, I have never been out of my village because I have to stay in my ward to ensure our children, mothers and the community continues to embrace peace,” he says smiling.
“I have a duty to maintain peace with my neighboring – Yala, Perepa, Amburepa and Yanarepa – tribes as well as other tribal enemies to make peace when there is conflict.
“That’s what kept me these long years to serve the state to continue to deliver peace, law and order. That’s what I had been doing and people trusted me and voted me to continue to serve to deliver peace and order.”
The village councillor says coming to Port Moresby was his maiden trip out of Galu and Erave LLG area. The trip to the capital trip was really mind boggling for him, a person who has never been out of his native place and he was amazed by the level of development the city has to offer him comparing to his ward and district.
Recalling the period when PNG gained self-government and finally independence in 1975, he says says Ron Neville, a former colonial administrator and a businessman, was the first Southern Highlands (including Hela) regional MP.
“It was three years before self-government in 1973 when I become councillor,” he explains. The granting of the self-government by the Australians was conveyed to us and we were told that we would become independent soon.
“I was still the ward councillor for Galu when we become independent,” Yari says, recalling a time when the hype of celebrations was rocking Southern Highlands like any other centres in celebration.
“I lead a group of people from my ward and we walked for a day to reach Erave station where the celebrations were taking place. We sang and marched and danced and the celebration of being free and independent was beyond happiness.”
Today it costs K10 for a PMV ride from his village to Erave station.
Yari says the councilors used to collect 50 cents to one dollar as council tax during the colonial rule and the tax money was either returned to the colonial administration or was sometimes used by councillors as their allowances. But since 1975, he said the councillors were given K50-K100 a monthly as allowance while the council tax was abolished.
The councillor said he wanted to know if there was any payment for him and his ward because currently the Erave LLG was suspended because of lack of public service machinery and poor administration.
“With such a state of malfunction in the LLG, as a long-serving councillor, I can’t continue to deliver now,” Yari says, adding that he was retiring and he was here “to see if I would be paid or recognised for my long years of services to the state.
“People always tell me my badge would be nailed on my coffin but I wanted to return it. I am here to resign now that I am old and my bones are getting older. I want the Government to know that I am here to return it,” the 78-year-old councillor said.
Yari says funding remains the major hindrance to delivering permanent peace and harmony among communities in rural areas and to effectively deliver government policies that would improve people’s lives to promote peace, law and order.
“I would be gone but I want the Government to give more money to the local-level governments for councillors to access to deliver basic services,” Yari says while lamenting the lack of funding that is igniting the alarming rate of lawlessness and crime in rural areas.
“Provide more funding and include councillors as public servants with regular pay and injecting money into local level government areas would result in better service delivery in terms of health, education and road infrastructure as well as promoting peace and order among people.
“Before there was no money but now there is money available. But what has been given is not enough so more funding should be provided for good outcomes.”
Yari, who had been a vibrant leader and councillor for his people and the ward for close to five decades, says while he would resign from his post as a regular councillor, he would continue to doing what loves doing and that is to mediate for peace and order as along as he lives on.