NEW DAWN ON BOUGAINVILLE

 

200917ABG WARNED BY LEASED BUILDING OWNERS
By Aloysius Laukai
At least four Leased building owners have given two weeks to the ABG to pay nine months outstanding rentals owed to Building owners that the ABG Divisions use as their offices.
These buildings in Arawa and Buka.
According to the letter of demand by leased building owners, the ABG has not honored its part of the agreement which states that rentals must be paid when it's due.
But they have outstanding for nine months now they said.
Companies that have given the ABG notice is Kabadi holdings which the Lands division Is using in Buka. 
The Pihei building which the all Community Government division is using in Buka.
And in Arawa is the member Rodney Osioco's building.
The notice said that if nothing is done within the next fourteen days, they will lock the officers out of these buildings.
This is not the first time that the people have warned the government to pay outstanding payments for services that were provided to the government.
Hire car operators have also called on the government to pay their bills and the list goes on.
Despite the bills for the ABG, the PNG ELECTORAL COMMISSION has outstanding monies going back to the 2012 National Election.
Service providers have been waiting patiently but these bills are still outstanding and patience is running out.
In June, the Electoral Manager for Bougainville, Desmond Timiyaso said that all outstanding for 2012 will be paid before polling but this has not eventuated.
In Buka the pressure is real and PNG Electoral commission officers are no longer in their office.Most of their time they operate from their homes.
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130917BOUGAINVILLE SET TO COMMEMORATE PNG INDEPENDENCE
By Aloysius Laukai

Bougainville will join the rest of Papua New Guinea to commemorate the 42nd Independence starting tomorrow in Buka.
According to the program, Buka celebrations will be held at the ISA Beach front in Buka town. The three-days program will have awareness on Alcohol and Drugs, Law and Order, Referendum, Tourism, Violence against women and Women’s equal rights.
The main Independence speeches will be held on Friday the 15th of September but celebrations will continue till Saturday the 16th September 2017.
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Picture of the House burnt...taken in 2015
By Aloysius Laukai

100917BOUGAINVILLE’S WHOLESALER SUFFERS THROUGH A FIRE
By Aloysius Laukai
Bougainville’s big wholesaler and distributor and local company JOMIK Trading lost its ware house and office in a fire that gutted two of its buildings and other two nearby buildings last Saturday evening the 9th of September 2017 in Buka town’s Back Street.
The fire started at about 7pm in the evening and by 9pm two of Jomik’s buildings were fully alight and there was nothing that the company workers and neighbours could do without a fire service in Buka town.
The other two houses were a building owned by former Police Officer, PETER MASIKE who built this house as his retirement home and was rented to Island TV and Maino Trading a local trader who had just taken that building and fully packed with cargoes to be opened on Monday the eleventh of September.
According to eye witnesses, fire started from the former plant hire office and spread very quickly spread to its big steel building warehouse just opened in 2015 and built by a Philippine company.
The building where the fire started was built at around 2009 and was built so close to the Peter Masike building which was where New Dawn FM a local Community Radio started its operating in 2008. That building was built at around the late 1990’s and was used first by LIMA Trading as a wholesaler and taken over by Tambolema Trading in 2002, when Lima Trading left Buka to operate in Buin, South Bougainville.
Tambolema Trading and New Dawn FM moved out of the MASIKE building in January,2010 after operating there for eight years.
According to PETER MASIKE this was his only investment and could not believe what had happened as it happened very quickly and he could not do anything to save his building. The could have burnt other buildings if some courage volunteers did not stood up and made sure the fire did not spread to other nearby buildings. In this particular area and within most of Buka town the buildings were built very close to each other.
The Buka Town Manager, EDDIE KENAI told news reporters that the ABG is to be blamed for what has happened because it does not have a Physical planning Board and a building board and also has not established a Fire Service in Buka although a MOU with the PNG FIRE SERVICE was signed some years back.
And just last week New Dawn FM talked to fire service staff who carried out a survey on the risk of a fire for the Buka town and surrounding suburbs of Kokopau, Sohano, Kubu and Hutjena.
They said from a table between 0 and Ten, Buka town was at Ten as a risky area in terms of a fire risk area.
Town Manager called on the ABG to quickly set up the Physical Planning board to make sure buildings are approved for standard and quality and also looking at the space between buildings.
He said that because of the non-availability of these institutions people are building houses wherever they want to.
Meanwhile another wholesaler and owner of Buka Enterprises and Lankaessa Trading, MRS JOSEPHINE NAKIN told New Dawn FM that this was a sad day for Bougainville as this took many years for the HUMA family to come to this stage and losing assets such as these were very painful indeed.
She predicted that the BSP Bank will be running short on cash now as the Chinese businessmen do not bank their daily takings.
Meanwhile, fire at these buildings are still burning and with the continuing drought throughout Buka island people have been asked to take extra precautions and not start a fire un-necessarily.
The png fire service has already appointed a Inspector to be stationed in Buka and would be operating from the Disaster office in Kubu.
He was just waiting for the Housing Allocation committee to identify and allocate him a house for him to start work immediately.
One important question that these Government Departments have been asking was when the ABG will decide on the location for its headquater to make sure they don’t built and are told to move again to another location.
That would be a waste of time and money.
So far the gazetted location is Arawa in Central Bougainville but to date the ABG has not made any move yet.
One thing for sure is that BUKA TOWN has no space for expansion, Arawa town was taken over by villagers and including landowners and the only location with land readily available is Buin in South Bougainville which according to the new member for South Bougainville, TIMOTHY MASIU will be the first City on Bougainville.
He is already talking of developing the Kangu Border post as the JAYA PURA for Bougainville allowing business to bloom at the border area between Bougainville and the Solomon islands.
Work has already started on sealing the Buin to Arawa highway starting from the Kangu beach overlooking the Solomon islands.
Locations for the International airport at Kihili and the International wharf at Tonolei Harbour have already been identified.
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040917LANDOWNER QUESTIONS MIRIORI
By Aloysius Laukai

A Panguna landowner today questioned who mandated PHILIP MIRIORI to say that because the ABG had no opposition, he was acting as the Opposition to the ABG.
The landowner was responding to a news release by MR MIRIORI against the ABG and its deals with the BCL which is owned by the PNG National Government, the ABG and the landowners themselves.
The former owner, RIO TINTO withdrew and gave shares to the PNG Government and the ABG plus the landowners.
The landowner called on MR. MIRIORI to meet with the ABG leaders instead of creating unnecessary tension by going straight to the media on issues that can be sorted out peacefully as Bougainvilleans.
The landowner said if the Landowners from the PANGUNA are greedy they must be prepared to compensate Bougainvilleans who fell fighting for Panguna.
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040917LEAVE THE ABG PARLIAMENT HOUSE
By Aloysius Laukai

The ABG Speaker SIMON PENTANU has been called on to stop allowing the ABG House for conferences and making it look like a Conference centre or a guest house.
A chief from BUIN told New Dawn FM that the building should be kept for parliamentary proceedings and not for gatherings like the recent public meeting by the women of Bougainville.
The chief PAUL KAMUA said that this building is a CHIEF’S HOUSE and must not be used as party house by non politicians.
He said the women of Bougainville must do a custom for using the Parliament as their meeting house and stop using it in the future.
MR. KAMUA said the women leaders must utilize women centres for their meetings.
New Dawn FM went to the Parliament to get a response from the Speaker who is out of the region, but the clerk promised to make a response once the speaker returns.
Many other Bougainvilleans also supported the comments by PAUL KAMUA.
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Fire services officers in the New Dawn FM studio yesterday.
Left Eremas and Right Waira Picture by Aloysius Laukai

040917FIRE INSPECTOR APPOINTED
By Aloysius Laukai

Bougainville’s Fire Service Inspector has been appointed to be based in Buka in preparation for the establishment of the Fire Services in Buka.
This was revealed by Officers from the PNG Fire services when talking on NEW DAWN FM this morning.
Officers EREMAS and WAIRA told New Dawn FM that the PNG FIRE SERVICES is committed to establish as soon as possible in Buka.
They said that they have been allocated an office at the Disaster Office in Kubu but need a house for the Inspector to stay and work.
The officers said that their trip was to carry out inspections of buildings within Buka town, Kokopau, Kubu, Hutjena and Sohano to decide on the type of Fire services that would be suitable for Buka.
They said that the residents of Buka town and its surroundings must know that prevention of a fire is better than trying to put out a fire.
The officers said that because water supply was a problem in Buka town, residents must have filled up spare tanks that can be used in a fire emergency.
They also said that Business houses need to move all fuel depots out of residential areas to minimise the risk of affecting more people.
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040917BUKA TOWN HIGH RISK OF FIRE
By Aloysius Laukai

Buka town needs to follow physical Planning guideline to avoid a major disaster that could result in the event of a fire.
This is more so with Business houses operating the town.
This was the message from staff from the National Fire service who visited Buka last week and returned to Port Moresby today.
Before returning to Port Moresby today, they told New Dawn FM in a live interview that Buka town is a high risk town in an event that fire occurs in one of the buildings.
Officers, EREMAS and WAIRA said that their trip to Buka was to meet with the ABG and stakeholders like the Buka Urban Council and the Technical Office plus the Disaster office to establish their office in Buka.
They said that their discussions followed a MOU signed between the ABG and the Fire Services.
They said that were satisfied with all discussions they had in Buka and hope to establish in Buka soon.
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