“What an opportunity it is that Bougainville has two Ministers in Government. What an opportunity missed it will be if the Ministers do not work in consultation and in tandem with ABG in the remaining months of to the next elections mid next year.

May be the newly appointed Minister for Bougainville Affairs will work around the clock to stitch up the loose ties and ends, mend the fractures and pick up the broken pieces to get a meaningful working relationship established with Bougainville Members of the House .

“Our four national MPs and 40 MHRs must come together and walk along the same path, in the same direction, with the same purpose, bearing the same cross on a journey towards a common Good, welfare and wellbeing of the People.

In a nutshell, have we a leader or a group of leaders that can deliver on the vision for everyone? “

A commentary by – Simon Pentanu

“It will also be something close to political deceit if together our combined political leadership does not deliver on the political promises and pledges that candidates swear to at elections that, if elected, they would do their utmost to rebuild and resurrect Bougainville.

This is the unequivocal challenge the Third House of Representatives faces head on through the referendum preparations and the myriad challenges from now to 2020.

Opportunities missed are opportunities lost and gone.”

Leadership Challenges of Autonomous Government   The Hon Patrick Nisira MP, Vice President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea see below Canberra Australia event 28 April

It has taken a very determined and audacious Prime Minister and his government to give real and long overdue facelift to Port Moresby, the nation’s capital. Mt Hagen has also benefited, so also will Lae city when the new wharf and Nadzab Terminal upgrades are completed.

This in stark reality has meant someone biting the political bullet and defraying all manners of politically loaded invectives and the courage of one’s convictions to do something that others have only played lip service to.

The PM and the Government’s decision has led to renovations and recovery of the decaying and decadent concrete monolith called the Pineapple Building and the adjacent time-ravaged Central Government Offices complex. The offices will save any Government in the future hugely exorbitant outlays in private rentals that real estate owners and operators have been thriving on handsomely for years.

Some of the Provinces and their provincial centres are also benefiting from this. Milne Bay is an example. Alotau, a peaceful town is welcoming an onset of national business travellers. The upgrade of Gurney airport for international flights will be good for the local economy with tourists and business travellers a good sales and marketing pitch for the province and the country. Similarly, if they walk the talk other provinces with business potential and cultural pull will reap benefits in a similar way.

The New Guinea Islands region has always attracted visitors. After the devastation of Rabaul by the volcanic eruption in September 1994, the growth of Kokopo has been an astonishing success in planning, funding, managing and implementing a resurgence through a combined effort of the ENB Provincial Government and the Gazelle Restoration Authority. I mention this because the PM and his Government’s support and delivery of any infrastructural development is being done on the back of what the province already has.

If Bougainville’s leaders also put their foot where their mouth is in demanding basic infrastructural development and upgrades by holding the PM to his repeated remarks that his main concern in rebuilding B’ville is through development. Time and again the PM has said openly that his main concern is to deliver development on Bougainville.

What an opportunity it is that Bougainville has two Ministers in Government. What an opportunity missed it will be if the Ministers do not work in consultation and in tandem with ABG in the remaining months of to the next elections mid next year.

May be the newly appointed Minister for Bougainville Affairs will work around the clock to stitch up the loose ties and ends, mend the fractures and pick up the broken pieces to get a meaningful working relationship established with Bougainville Members of the House .

Our four national MPs and 40 MHRs must come together and walk along the same path, in the same direction, with the same purpose, bearing the same cross on a journey towards a common Good, welfare and wellbeing of the People.

Bougainville has the natural resources and untapped wealth to do it. It has a relatively small population that can share the resources more than adequately and equally for everyone’s benefit .Have we got the collective minds, the sobriety and the goodwill to do it?

In a nutshell, have we a leader or a group of leaders that can deliver on the vision for everyone?

It will be a disappointment if elected leaders in the National Parliament and the Bougainville House of Representatives do not find the common chord and the core values that the people expect leaders to be bound by and if they do not rise above individual preoccupations toward a political precept that confers a duty of service to and care for all citizens.