NEW DAWN ON BOUGAINVILLE

180320 MILLIONS RELEASED IN PREPAREDNESS PLAN FOR COVID-19
NEW DAWN FM NEWS
ACCORDING to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report, the PNG Government has released more than K13 million to implement the PNG emergency Preparedness and Response Plan for covid-19.
National Department of Health (NDoH) has released K3.3 million while the Department of Treasury Released K10 million.
WHO reports that funding request has been updated to K92, 849,589 to include support to all provinces where as K45.3 million was approved with K10 million been made available and NDoH released K3.3 from the NDoH.
The plan funded outlines “three Cs” scenarios – first case, first cluster, and first evidence of community transmission and for dealing with sustained community transmission.
The plan also identifies various scenarios and key actions that will be taken for every phase.
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170320 -BUIN ESTABLISHES TASKFORCE TO POLICE PNG-SOLOMON ISLANDS BORDER.
MEDIA RELEASE
THE Government agency representatives in Buin, South Bougainville have established a task force to police the shut down on movements along the PNG-Solomon Islands border.
The establishment of the taskforce is to help support the electorate take steps to prepare its people for a coronavirus invasion.
The taskforce is chaired by the Buin District executive manager Peter Kamuai and spearheaded by senior officials of the Buin Health Centre as the frontline agency and other stakeholders including the police, customs and the Buin District Administration.
South Bougainville MP and Minister for Information, Communication and Technology, Timothy Masiu expressed concern about the continued movement of the people from both sides of the border despite the border shut down.
The Minister has called on the Minister for Immigrations to immediately deploy officers to Buin to police the border shut down upon the decision of the national government.
The decision affects all major border entry points including Wutung in West Sepik and Torres Strait in Western Province, as well as other smaller border points around the country which includes Buin.
At its inaugural meeting yesterday (Monday) it was agreed that awareness and surveillance were most important right now to educate the people of South Bougainville electorate about the devastating nature of the coronavirus.
The meeting was also advised that the Solomon Islands is on red alert hence the need to stop the Solomon Islanders entering Bougainville through Buin and Sirovai.
A core committee was assembled and tasked to draw up a work plan and budget for presentation to Minister Masiu through the South Bougainville District Development Authority Board which is meeting in Buin on Thursday.

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180320 PRIVATE STAKEHOLDERS APPROVED TO CONTRIBUTE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CORONA VIRUS IN BOUGAINVILLE.
NEW DAWN FM NEWS
PRIVATE Business sectors agreed during the conference with the Health department yesterday to assist the Department in disseminating information about corona virus in the rural areas of Bougainville.
Each of the stakeholders are providing facilities to the department to smoothly run awareness in the all parts of Bougainville and also agreed to provide other facilities to be used if any case is reported in the region.
In response on the question of how they can support in the campaign of dissemination information of corona virus, Buka BSP agreed to provide cartons of A4 papers for pamphlets and JSK agreed to contribute in the printing of the pamphlets.
TISA to provide cartons of papers plus they will distribute those pamphlets by assisting in conducting awareness at the same time, and Lankesa to provide gloves and facemasks.
Some private stakeholders asked the department to request formally to them for more assistance if needed during the awareness.
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180320 PNG REPORTED PROBABLE CASE OF COVID-19
NEW DAWN FM NEWS
ACCORDING to the Department of Health Media Release today 18th of March reported that Papua New Guinea just have a probable imported case of Coronavirus.
The case is a 45 year old, male who arrived in Port Moresby on the 13th March, 2020.
The case did not show any symptoms of cough flu or fever through the checks at the airport until after 24 hours, he presented with a flu and slight fever and thus fitted the case definition of a COVID-19 “person of interest.”
Emergency Response Plan Procedures were activated and he was isolated and placed under strict quarantine, with test results sent to the institute of Medical Research for immediate testing.
The case travelled from Madrid, Barcelona, Istanbul and entered our borders through Singapore. He then travelled from Port Moresby to Lae.
National Department of Health (NDOH) has initiated contact tracing on the 14th of February on all passengers who may have come into contact with the case but no one is showing any symptoms of covid-29.
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180320 BOUGAINVILLE CHIEF NOT HAPPY WITH DR PUKA COMMENTS
NEW DAWN FM NEWS

A Bougainville chief and Exporter of Cocoa and farmer, JAMES RUTANA says he is not happy with comments made by the Bougainville Affairs Minister, DR PUKA TEMU’S concerning ratification of the Bougainville Referendum result.
He said he did not agree one bit in his comments that the Bougainville referendum result will be ratified until such time Bougainville becomes prosperous.
MR.RUTANA said that the comments made by the Minister was an insult to the people of Bougainville and their government.
He said that it was Bougainville that provided economic guarantee for the first ten years of PNG Independence and Bougainville has facts and statistics that only a fool will deny.
MR. RUTANA said if the PNG Government were honest and genuine in their reservation of Bougainville they must return the goodwill by ratifying the result with no conditions.
He said if prosperity was the problem for the PNG Government okay let Bougainville go.

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180320GO PNG TO TRANSFER BCL SHARES TO BOUGAINVILLE
NEW DAWN FM NEWS

The last Joint Supervisory Body meeting in Port Moresby approved that all shares owned by the Papua New Guinea National Government be transferred to the Government and people of Bougainville.
In this meeting, the JSB noted that;
- In 2017, the National Executive Council made a decision for the National Government to transfer 17.4% from its 36.4% shares to the Landowners of Panguna and
- On 13th December 2019, at the joint announcenment of the Bougainville Referendum results by the Prime Minister James Marape and President John Momis in Arawa, Hon. Prime Minister Marape further announced that the National Government will transfer to ABG its remaining 19% of the BCL shares.
- Consistent with the National Government’s undertaking and commitment, this will now result in the National Government transfering its full 36.4% BCL shares to the ABG.

a) That the JSB endorsed the transfer of the National Government’s allocation of 36.4% of shares in Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) to Bougainville Minerals Limited who will manage on behalf of the ABG and the Panguna Landowners the shares.
b) JSB also directed the National Department of Treasury and Kumul Minerals Limited together with the Ministry of Mineral and Energy Resources to effect the immediate transfer of 36.4% BCL shares to the Bougainville Minerals Limited.

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170320ABG GENERAL ELECTION FUNDS FOR 2020
New Dawn FM News

The Joint Supervisory Body meeting last week also noted that the ABG General Elections 2020 issue of Writs will be on March 27, 2020, however the JSB also noted that the issue of writs is subject to the Supreme Court decision that is pending.
The JSB also directed the National Department of Treasury to make available on time funds to conduct the ABG General Election 2020.
It also noted that the PNG Electoral Commission has still outstanding National General Election debt of K5 million for National General Elections conducted on Bougainville in 2012 and 2017.

Based on this the JSB also directed the National Department of Treasury to make available funds to the PNG Electoral Commission to settle all outstanding 2012 and 2017 National Election debt on Bougainville and provide a status report to both Governments in the next JSB meeting this year (2020).

New Dawn FM last week ran a story of service providers to the National Electoral Commission complaining about their outstanding bills.

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160320 MINISTER TO CONDUCT AWARENESSES ON CORONA VIRUS IN HIS ELECTORATE
NEW DAWN FM NEWS
ABG MINISTER for Lands and Physical Planning and Member for Hagogohe Honourable Robert Harmal Sawa today declared that he will be conducting an awareness about the corona virus in his electorate.
He told New Dawn FM that he will conduct the awareness this week to inform his people about the pandemic disease.
Mr Sawa said people need to fully aware of the basic information about this infection and start practicing precaution activities before corona virus hit Bougainville.
He said precaution activities are the only important things to learn at this period of time as there is no cure available yet.
He said to help the people of Bougainville survive this pandemic outbreak, the government has to critically conduct some awareness to all the people to consider practicing precaution..
Mr Sawa also appealed to the other ABG members to do the same in their Electorates to faithfully practice precautions to prevent the spread of this pandemic disease.

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160320 BUKA GENERAL HOSPITAL ADVICED THE PUBLIC ON CORONA VIRUS AND RECOMMEND NOT TO PANIC…
NEW DAWN FM NEWS
REPRESENTATING BUKA General Hospital Dr. Mathias Tovilu provided more information about the pandemic disease that is now covering most of the world countries, and urged the public not to panic.
Dr Tovilu said that the disease can infect any age group but it is more vulnerable to people over 60 years of age living with other illnesses like diabetes and heart problem.
He said 80% of the total infected people are recovering from the infection and young people are recovering faster after a minor infection.
He said that Bougainvilleans must not have false instincts and panic from hearing types of callous information because infected people will still recover.
Dr Tovilu also urged the public not to entertain witch-doctors with traditional herbs because he said that this pandemic disease is new and still has no medicine, no vaccination, and no treatment.
Dr Tovilu said that the most important things to consider now is to practice precautions like washing hands frequently, covering mouth when coughing and giving distance to one another to prevent the spread of the virus.

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160320 BRC DISPOSES REFEREMDUM MATERIALS.
MEDIA RELEASE
The BRC has formally destroyed all ballot papers and other sensitive materials used in the Bougainville referendum last week Friday.
As authorized by law, ballot papers and materials from all 249 ballot boxes were burnt in an official ceremony witnessed by members of the Bougainville Police Service and BRC Commissioner Patrick Nisira.
Acting Chief Referendum Officer Mr Desmond Tsianai said the Organic Law authorised the BRC to destroy all sensitive materials such as ballot papers and voter rolls after the petition period had ended.
The 40-day petition period is now over, no petitions were received and now is the time to proceed with the formal disposal of all materials before the BRC winds up in April Mr Tsianai said.
He said the electoral process is complete and the result has been accepted by all parties. The Commission is now decommissioning as per its Charter, and everything must be completed as by law during this period.
An independent audit of BRC accounts is currently underway, and assets have been handed over to the two governments and the Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission.
In April, the Commission will provide its final report on the conduct of the referendum to the two governments and will then cease to exist.
Mr Tsianai said separate arrangements were being made to produce a formal archive documenting the BRC and referendum process for the public.
He said the BRC website will remain online as an electronic archive of all referendum materials and information, and we will be gifting key materials to the two governments including a special pictorial publication for their display and distribution.

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