By DALCY LULUA
IN the midst of paying tribute to Late Sir Julius Chan in parliament yesterday, Sir Puka Temu recommends to the House that a K1000 note to be made and with Sir J’s face on the bill.
“I recommend that we look at producing a K1000 bill and in that K1000, we put Sir Julius’ face because he is the one that we have to acknowledge, as he structured the financial system of this country at the time, amongst our many leaders,” Sir Puka said.
“Sir Julius Chan was the architect of the structure of our financial and the economic systems,” he added.
“As we are going to celebrate our 50th Anniversary, and at the launching of the of the of the 50th anniversary preparations by the Prime Minister on the 30th of January, the day that Sir Julius Chan has passed away, my messages and being the architect of our economy and the financial legislations, I recommend like I recommended when Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare passed on, SILAG be under his name and now is SILAG,” said Sir Temu.
The Abau MP also recommended to the government for provincial autonomy be considered.
“This is a question I’ve been pondering on for awhile and is that out of the eight prime ministers that we have had, three of those prime ministers went back to be governor of the provinces.
“They were Sir Michael Somare, Sir Julius Chan and Paias Wingti. They had spent most of their time worrying about the country, and they forgot about their provinces. So, when they had the chance, they went to be Governors of the three prime ministers.
“What is there for a lesson? I think the lesson is these three prime ministers believe that the provinces are the basis for our nation building.
“If we get our provinces and their economies right, and align their budgets right so that governors and their members of parliament can move their provinces, I think as a country we will move at a faster pace,” Sir Puka stated.
“As we are now, in the year of the 50th anniversary of independence, we have to seriously make a decision to structure an autonomous arrangement, because some of us believe like the three former prime Ministers that provinces have to be the building block for this nation from now and in the next 50 years to come.”
Sir Puka recalls Sir Julius Chan as a workaholic and man of wisdom.