The Chief Secretary to Government and Chairman of the Central Agency Coordination Committee, Ivan Pomaleu says today that it is important to bring the Central Agency Coordination Committee to where it matters most.
Chief Secretary Pomaleu said this during the First CACC Regional Consultative Meeting for this year at Eboa Village in Kairuku District of Central Province.
He told the people of Eboa that they were the reason why CACC was present today in their village for this important meeting.
“We wanted to ensure that we stay connected to what you have in mind. We wanted to make sure that you have the ultimate opportunity to deal directly with us; to tell us what your issues are and to make us understand them.
“I want to acknowledge the speech of the Kairuku Member Hon. Peter Isoiamo. We are here to listen more than to speak so I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of your people and for telling us what it’s like; for giving us an inside view of what your important challenges are and what your priorities are.
“This is the reason why we came. Let me tell you a little bit about CACC. The CACC sits under the National Executive Council. NEC is a committee of ministers. We, CACC, are the committee under the NEC.
“Now, what does that mean? That means that every policy, project and document that goes before the NEC comes through CACC. We clear it before it goes to the ministers and the prime minister to deal with.
“So, we are at a place where we do a lot of things; we read about it, we hear those who represent different policies and proposals coming through. But sometimes, we don’t see what it means to be on the ground. We cannot make the connections on what it means to our people in villages such as Eboa. And so, it was important that we brought CACC to where it matters most.
“We need to be able to appreciate that what we do here means something here in the village, LLG, district and province,” he said.
Mr Pomaleu said this was not the first time CACC had these regional meetings. The CACC has had regional meetings before and mostly were held in towns. However, this time CACC is taking the meetings to the villages and communities. This is the first held in Central Province for the Southern Region.
“We will do four meetings this year in the regions. The Southern region gets one and this is the one in Eboa Village; for Momase, it will be held in Sepik; for the Highlands, it will be in Enga and for the New Guinea Islands; it will be in Manus.
He is hopeful that over the course of a few years, CACC will be able to cover as many of the villages in the country.
“We hope to be able to understand the key issues that are important to our people on the ground.
“We will be able to translate some of the government’s important policies to those who receive them so that we are able to make the important connection. We are able to appreciate what we are deciding here or recommending to our government to do, which means something to our people.
“I want to reflect on the speech that the Honorable Member has made, which covered a lot on agriculture, SME, transport, education, infrastructure, health, village developments that are all important to us.
“Honourable Member, we are looking forward to your district development plan, we might send a representative to the launch if you give us an invite.
“We won’t be able to have all the answers as we sit at a place where we have to help our government determine priorities and that is subject to leadership and the government that you are part of to determine how we allocate resources. However, we certainly can become sympathetic to your issues.
“Our government does have priorities but these are the people who make it happen. These are the people who will put the paper work together, these are the people who will potentially decide on the numbers and go to the budget. These people are your district members,” he said.
