THE Medium Term Development Plan IV 2023-2027 Regional Alignment consultative workshops get underway in all four regional centers in Papua New Guinea.
Department of National Planning and Monitoring (DNPM) is conducting and facilitating these workshops to ensure all provinces and districts align their development plans to the MTDP IV by November 2023.
Highlands and Momase Regions have already completed their workshops while Southern and New Guinea Islands commenced theirs as of yesterday.
The consultative workshop for the Southern Region is currently underway at Gateway Hotel in Port Moresby while for the New Guinea Islands, it’s being held at Gazelle International Hotel in Kokopo, East New Britain Province.
These workshops are being attended by the Provincial Administrators, District CEOs, Provincial and District Planners and senior officers of all the provinces and districts.
The MTDP IV formulation and alignment Team Leader and Deputy Secretary Michael Kumung said that Southern Region is strategically positioned to transform its economy and change the status of their respective provinces and districts if they are strategic in their approach to development.
He said the region is the home of the country’s capital city as it hosts some of the iconic national development features such as PNG LNG Plant, the famous Kokoda Trak that runs between Central and Oro provinces, the new Papua LNG and other oil and gas fields in Gulf and Western Provinces, giant Ok Tedi Mine, tourism hotspots of Milne Bay and Oro Provinces and the vast land mass suitable for large scale agriculture and livestock developments including forestry and marine resources.
Mr. Kumung said the region also shares two international borders which provide economic potentials, especially Western and Milne Bay provinces to take advantage of and start planning for large scale agriculture and livestock development, marine resources developments, tourism and increase trade and investments.
Furthermore, the deputy secretary challenged Central and Gulf Provinces to take advantage of the demand and opportunities that Port Moresby city is presenting by developing the land into large scale agriculture developments to feed the city and generate wealth for the people.
“Stop wandering around in Port Moresby and stop selling your land to settlers.
“Use your land for productive purposes and add value to yourself and your children in the future,” Mr. Kumung said.
He said once the region is opened to the Momase and Highlands Region through the Connect PNG Highway and start receiving traffic and movement of people, the whole economic structure of the region will change.
“We must prepare for this,” Kumung challenged.
MTDP IV Strategic Priority Area (SPA) 1 presents the Marape-Rosso Government’s thinking of growing the economy through strategic economic investments in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, tourism, mineral and petroleum sectors.
The Deliberate Intervention Programs (DIPs) of MTDP IV have been mapped out to provide clarity and ease for the provinces and districts to pick their comparative advantage sectors and start developing plans to explore and invest in them.
The Provincial Administrator for Western Province, Mr Robert Kaiyun acknowledged the DNPM in its efforts to aligning the country into adopting one planning system given the challenges that the provinces and districts face while trying to deliver goods and services to the people.
He thanked the Marape-Rosso Government for coming up with a very simple and well-structured plan to guide the provinces and district to align their respective programs to deliver the targeted outcomes using the available financial resources provided to the provinces and districts.
Kaiyun expressed that Western Province will align its development plan to MTDP IV to explore the economic potential that the province has while developing programs to deliver the basic services needs of the people in the province.
Both Southern and New Guinea Islands Regions MTDP IV alignment workshops will end on Friday 27th October with the draft aligned provincial and district plans completed for the regions.
