A member of the Southern Highlands provincial Executive Council has called on
public servants and people engaged in the disaster relief efforts throughout the province to refrain from collecting fees from the people. Leader of Government business and chairman of district and Local Level Government Affairs and president of South Wiru Joe Kunukunu said after receiving reports that the people engaged to coordinate and assist in the disaster affected places throughout the province were collecting fees from the people. Kunukunu said people engaged including public servants from the districts and from the provincial headquarters should be doing work on humanitarian grounds instead of collecting fees from affected people in the promise to distribute relief assistances. He said the Southern Highlands provincial government has taken lead in spearheading the distribution of the relief supplies as directed by Governor William Powi. He said so far the provincial government has committed another K2 million in addition to the K500 000 early this month while the National Government has committed K5 million for relief efforts. He said the funds are for relief assistance for people affected by the flooding and for immediate reconstruction and maintenance work on major infrastructure such as roads and bridges that have been washed away in the flood and therefore people should not be collecting fees from the poor people striving to survive after been affected. Kunukunu who was organizing relief supplies for people affecting in his LLG said by phone that supplies would be distributed to the people while funding from the provincial government would be distributed equally to the LLGs affected by the disaster. A source from the provincial government said that the provincial disaster office in Mendi was taking lead in the relief effort but funding is yet to be received from the National Government for immediate relief assistance. “There is no money. We have not received any money from anyone yet and therefore people have not received any relief assistance as yet,” the source said. Meanwhile heavy rain is continuing throughout the province and people are likely to die of starvation if relief assistance is not forthcoming soon. Comments are closed.
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