BY BARNABAS MANEBONA
CENTRAL Islands Province newly elected Premier Hon Polycarp Galaigu makes it known that his current Executive’s top priority is to restrengthen the weak revenue of the province.
The Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) for Ward 8 at Northwest Ngella who was elected Premier this morning having eight votes out of 13 votes in his favor said this is the main target for the first three months under his leadership.
From working on their top priority, Mr. Galaigu said they will then try to look at other issues inside their plan, but at this point, he cannot put them out yet, depending on the nature of the provincial revenue.
This is because it is understood that due to all the recent political instability in the province, CIP has been 100 percent disqualified for the ‘Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) Budget’.
“We need to go in line with the one-year period that will end in June next year if everything goes normal.
“There are plans in my current Executive Government, especially in our hundred-day policy. Given the small-time period left there is not much being put up there, but the main priority now is to make some good strategies not being done by the previous Executive Government to collect revenue in full so that we widen back the base of the revenue of the province.
“Given currently, the revenue of the province is very weak, this is the main target for our first three months.
“From there then we will try to look into other issues inside of our plan, but at this point, I cannot put them out yet, depending on the nature of our revenue because as we all know that the whole PCDF budget has been taken out, in terms to work on Capital projects and such areas.
“So it depends entirely on the government of the day under my leadership. We will try arranging with some investors or good partners to try to continue with the PCDF projects. This is so that one or two of them can be achieved without using or relying on the PCDF money,” said Galaigu.
The Premier today has raised appreciation towards the current Non-Executive side for showing a positive sign to work positively onwards together after the ‘election for the Premier’ this morning.
“It is very important for a positive ‘working together with the Non-Executive too on which a good sign was shown this morning after the election for the Premier, having them giving a note to inform us that they are most willing to be members of the Provincial Public Accounts Committee [PPAC].
“That was a small threat for us because if they were not willing to be PPAC members then what were we going to do with the eight MPAs on our side.
“Whether we put four of our members in the PPAC committee while the other four will be in the Executive, these were the ideas coming up, but since they came forward positively this morning after the election of the Premier, I am very happy with the non-Executive side.
“If we continue to work positively together we can even go to the extent that Non-Executive members can be both members in the PPAC and Executive. That was my message today to the Assembly.
“Despite all these political hiccups along the way, there is always love and heart for each other, this is our government, it is everybody’s government. I am not the Premier alone, we are all Premiers for our province,” said Galaigu.
To the people of CIP, the new Premier acknowledges all the support given to the formation of his Executive as he encourages everyone to work together positively to serve their province.
“Message to the people and citizens of this province specifically, from Russel to the ends of Ngella including Savo, this government does not belong to Ngella alone. It belongs to Ngella, Savo, and Russell Islands,” said Galaigu.
“I thank you all for your patience despite all this political instability. I believe more than 50 percent have been looking forward to this government rule. Despite that fact, there is no favor in this government as to who is supporting them and who is not. Understand that this government belongs to everyone.
“I thank supporters for supporting me one way or the other coming up to form this government.
“I look forward to working closely with the people of the province, there will be visitations to the people as they are also welcome to come forward to my Office so that we can be part of serving together our province, by building it up to the positive level expected from everyone.”
Since the resignation of the former PPAC members of CIP early this year having Mr. Galaigu as the then Chairman, it has led to the issues of the province missing out on timely passing its ‘Financial Year (FY) Budget’ and the MONC against former Premier Stanley Manetiva.
The non-cooperation action taken by the former PPAC members was due to disagreement with how the former Executive government was handling funds and projects.
Having the MONC taking place late last week and the election for Premier this morning was a reprocess of the previous MONC and election for Premier four weeks ago that was deemed invalid.
In brief history, 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 also first 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 Mr. Manetiva remains in power and warned that he would dissolve CIP’s Assembly if they failed to resolve their political differences by the end of June.
With that, CIP’s Speaker Hon Francis Moah had earlier confirmed that they were 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 the recent MONC against Mr. Stanley Manetiva and the election for new Premier this morning 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.
As a result of all the political instability as well, after today’s Premier election, CIP’s Assembly according to the Speaker will only be operating on the ‘Recurrent Budget’.
“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.
CIP had already lost $5.6M in funding from the government due to failing to meet the deadline for the passage of the provincial “Budget”.
The Contingency Warrant (CW) that CIP is currently operating under since failing to pass the ‘Budget’ around April is understood to lapse by the end of this month July.
On the other hand, if CIP’s Assembly manages to pass their ‘Budget’ before the end of this month on which the Assembly is said to end on ‘July 28’, then most likely according to CIP’s Speaker, the province will be operating up until next year June according to advice received from the higher authority (MPGIS).
