BY BARNABAS MANEBONA
POLYCARP Galaigu, the Member of Provincial Assembly for Ward 8, Northwest Ngella has been confirmed as the new valid Premier of Central Islands Province following a ballot this Wednesday morning.
Hon Galaigu standing unopposed on the ‘round two’ Motion of No Confidence (MONC) saga won with eight (8) votes, while Hon David Manetiva for Ward 12 at North Savo on behalf of the other camp under former Premier Hon Stanley Manetiva had five (5).
After the Premier election, due to all the political instability, the Assembly will only be operating on the ‘Recurrent Budget’, according to CIP’s Speaker Hon Francis Moah.
“We will only be operating on the Recurrent Budget, a little on the Capital Budget but only on the ministerial allocations. For the PCDF, 100 percent, it is all out. We have been disqualified for it. The previous Budget announced was deemed invalid, we are coming back to reprocess everything,” said Moah.
Since the resignation of the former Provincial Public Accounts Committee (PPAC) early this year due to disagreement with how the former Executive government were handling funds and projects, it has led to the MONC against former Premier Stanley Manetiva.
This is ‘Round Two’ of the MONC and election for Premier since the previous MONC against Mr Stanley Manetiva around four weeks ago was deemed invalid, as well as the previous election of Hon Polycarp Galaigu as the new Premier of CIP.
In brief background, the Minister of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) Hon Rollen Seleso on the advice of the Attorney General (AG) wrote to CIP’s Speaker Hon Francis Moah that the previous election of a new Premier that Hon Polycarp Galaigu won was invalid.
Seleso went on to say that based on the AG’s advice, the motion failed to meet the seven clear days requirement and it was called by seven MPAs’ as the absolute majority when eight was required. The Minister further instructed that Manetiva remains in power and warned that he would dissolve the CIP Assembly if they fail to resolve their political differences by the end of June.
On that, CIP’s Speaker Hon Francis Moah had earlier confirmed that they are in the process of reprocessing everything since the Minister of MPGIS is in the process of dissolving the Assembly.
“Let us quickly get this done through so that our provincial Assembly can be saved from being dissolved which will be a huge drawback for the province if such occur,” said Moah.
Speaker Francis Moah explaining on the most recent MONC against Mr Stanley Manetiva and the election for new Premier said a total of eight MPAs had signed the latest petition.
“Unlike the previous one where only 7 of them put their signatures to the petition calling for the CIP Assembly to meet, resulting in the first ousting of Manetiva,” said Moah.
It is understood that CIP has already lost $5.6M in funding from the government. This is because, with all the political instability, CIP failed to meet the deadline for the passage of the provincial “Budget”.
