THE Provincial Government Acts (PGA) 1997 must be reviewed or abolished because it left the provincial governments powerless to act and the way forward is statehood.
The comments were made by the Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) for Ward 3, Nusa Simbo, Gideon Tuke in his contribution to the Sine Die motion on Friday.
“Since the introduction of the Provincial Government Acts (PGA) 1997 designed by the National Government through the Ministry of the Provincial Government Strengthening Institution (MPGIS), provinces across the country are powerless to govern themselves,” he said.
Tuke recalled the dissolution of the Assembly for both Western and Choiseul Province in June 2022 followed by the provincial election held after six months is very unreal.
“The issue will go down in the history book. Those of us who participated in the last elections as candidates will never forget this violation of PGA regarding the conduct of elections in the Provincial Assembly.
“This is an unprecedented mistake ever done to our election rules as stipulated in the PGA 1997.
“This will not be the first time MPGIS made such unacceptable decisions to Western Provinces or provinces for that matter.
“Issues may be different in nature but they are safeguarding their centralized policies and decisions. At the end of the day, we are mere agents of the National Government,” Tuke said.
Tuke added Western Provinces or provinces are at the receiving end not having a fair share of what rightly belongs to them.
“We are not treated fairly enough because of the PGA 1997, the long anticipated review of the PGA 1997 has now taken 10 years, stand to be corrected.
“With the introduction of the minimum conditions, we are only given funds based performance measures,” he said.
As a result, the move towards the State System Government is the only way for provinces to move forward and have more power from the central government as promised by bigger provinces such as Western, Malaita and Guadalcanal provinces, he added.
He also highlighted the electoral commission also has warned the MPGIS governance division early in January 2022 to prepare for the election in June/July 2022.
“Yet they ignore the early warning hence the consequences of delaying our elections to be conducted after six months.
“This are some of the many examples of MPGIS deliberately ignoring and dictating provincial programs.
“As long as we have a master-servant relationship between the national and the provincial government, we should seriously consider a transition from unitary constitution to federalism,” he added.
Other MPAs contributing to the motion also highlighted that they firmly believe that the PG Act 1981 displayed the kind of government structure, flexibility, permissiveness and pragmatism necessary to accommodate the diverse emerging political aspirations in different provinces which could facilitate its aim to transition to the proposed Federal System of Government.
Meanwhile, it is expected that the Federal Draft Constitution (FDC) is at the hands of the National Government and Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare promised that adoption of the Federal Statehood will be ready by 2026.
By ULUTAH GINA
Solomon Star, Gizo
