Caption: Enga
Governor Peter Ipatas
By MATTHEW VARI
WITH the talk of Autonomy brewing from the islands region, from now autonomous Bougainville, to the requests for financial autonomy in both the East New Britain and New Ireland provinces- Enga province is now the first highlands province to formally request the move.
Enga Governor Peter Ipatas informed the media yesterday that provincial assembly has passed a resolution to now ask the national government to decentralize more powers to the province.
“We as a province now think that we have matured as a province we have the capacity to take on more responsibilities from the national government to basically to improve the delivery of services to our people,” Governor Ipatas
“As we all know Waignani is too far and we are isolated from all the provinces in this country.”
“You do not have to look far you just take Central province for an example- they are just next door, but even to Central province Waigani is too far, so Enga is physically too far.”
He said that with the strong leadership and systems in place that can provide the right ingredients for development.
“We will now be asking the national government to decentralize more powers to the province.”
“Enga has 462,000 people as of the last census living in Enga- as a people we are a big ethnic group, we have our own culture and values, our own history, and we have our own geography.”
“We are the only ones that know how to deal with our own people and come up with strategies to improve the delivery of service to our people.”
He added that he has always been an advocate for decentralization for a system where the national government only audits to make sure funds have not been abused, to provide advise to all provinces.
“We also find that after me being a governor for 18 year we have found that no one cares how far we have gone except ourselves,” he added.
“Therefore it is illogical for someone else to determine our future; we need to be given the power, the responsibilities to charter the responsibility for our future and our kids.”
He said with the provincial assembly resolution- they will write to the PM to ask him, adding that the desire was already discussed with the PM in the past.
“It is not outside of what the national government wants to do, which is to see mature provinces take up more responsibilities and for us in Enga we think that we should be the first ones to be given that opportunity.”
“In this way the buck stops with us and we take care of law and order, we take responsibility for road works, health, education, agriculture, you name it.”
He reiterated that the world autonomy presumed too much to also frightens people- something he said would not be used by his government when making the request.
“We will not use the word autonomy but just the decentralization of powers and functions in the provinces,” he said.
“I would like to see all the provinces compete, that is what that is going to make this country grow.”
“East New Britain and New Ireland have been talking and we highlanders have been quiet, from a highlands perspective we are also ready to do that.”
“When a mother is sick and the children feed from her they will also get sick, but if the children are also independent and when she is sick all the children will be strong enough to look after themselves- at the moment we need to work on that concept,” he added.
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