Vocal governor an example to all
THE Pacific need more legislators like Gary Juffa, Governor of Oro Province in Northern Papua New Guinea. He is a one-man army fighting to rid his country of the scourge of corruption which has deep roots and threatens to destroy the country from within. Juffa’s latest action has been to expose the construction of a provincial drug storage facility in his province at the cost of around $AUD217,000. This facility – basically a warehouse – has not been completed because the contractor was a local nurse with no knowledge of building or carpentry.
The situation has been compounded by the fact that the nurse was paid for five years while not doing any work for the Health Ministry. PNG’s central government paid upfront for the drug storage facility which is meant to house medicines and equipment for distribution to small, remote centres.
These centres are pivotal points for the health and wellbeing of a community which mainly lives in rural areas from which it is expensive to travel. A year after Juffa raised the matter with Health Minister Michael Malabag there has been no investigation into how the contract was awarded.
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