By MICHELLE AUAMOROMORO in Wewak, ESP
EAST Sepik Governor Allan Bird said he is keen to clean up the election process.
Bird said this during a press briefing this morning in Wewak where Pangu Party and its coalition partners are camping
“When I was newly elected in 2017, I raised this issue on the floor (of parliament) several times, but the PNC government was not interested in improving the process.
“And obviously, when you’re running a province, you have many other issues to deal with.
“I have to admit I forgot about it; I was too busy doing things for the province and other things.”
Bird, who is leading the race for East Sepik Regional Seat said he had requested Prime Minister James Marape and the Pangu-led government to have him be in-charge of a process that reviews the elections.
“I want to assure Papua New Guineans that if we’re given this opportunity (to form the government), I will clean up the process; I will lead a team that will clean up the process.
“I don’t like the idea of the constitutional rights of our people being pushed aside simply because of inefficiencies, incompetency and all these other things that lead to a very poor electoral process,” he said.
“Talking to the Prime Minister and the team here (in Wewak), they’re very keen to fix it and I volunteer to lead the process,” he added.
Bird said he wanted to do this because in his province of East Sepik, about 25% of the population did not have their names on the common roll.
“That’s something that we’re hoping to fix.
“There are mechanisms, like the NID and other things that we could utilize to ensure that the next voting process is better,” he said.
