A MEMBER of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) in the current Western provincial government has called on the province to consider increasing the number of wards to cater for the increasing population in the rural communities.
Provincial Minister for Fisheries Alesina Redfern in the current Western provincial government made the call during the Motion of Sine Dine last week at the Oravae Cottage in Gizo, Western province.
Mr Redfern there is a need to create additional wards to ensure local people benefit from the services rendered by the provincial government.
At the moment there are 26 wards in the province.
“Because of continuous increase population the number of people in most of the wards are getting bigger therefore some of the wards need to be divided.
“At the moment if we see how our wards were drawn up it is unfair because some wards are much bigger than others.
“Even it is much bigger than some constituency which makes it hard for us MPAs to implement all the work plans in the wards for the rural sectors in the province,’’ he said.
He added with the current allocation its hard for MPAs to equally distribute services and projects to their people in the wards.
He said Western province is one of the biggest provinces in the country and by creating additional wards will make it easy for MPAs to deliver government services to the people in the rural sectors.
Mr Redfern said even most people in the communities did not know about the creation of the Ward Development Committees (WDC) which are now responsible for selecting projects for the rural communities.
Since the creation of the WDC most communities and wards are now forming their own committee to screen and consider projects for their communities.
By ULUTAH GINA
In Gizo
