Posted By Staff Reporter
AT least 70 people were in parliament yesterday despite the Covid-19 protocols restricting the number to 50 for such gatherings. National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop reminded leaders that they were breaching protocols with more than 50 people in chamber. “We are talking about health response, the reality is this that the pandemic will not stop. It is us the people who will stop the pandemic,” he told the house. “The virus is happening and spreading because we continue to work in groups, we need to take leadership and that will change the people’s minds.” Western Highlands Governor Paias Wingti told fellow MPs that people’s ignorance was leading to more deaths from the virus. He demanded that the Government take a stand and remain firm with its decisions when handling the Covid-19 in provinces and districts.
He reminded the leaders that the increase in number of deaths was imminent because of the ignorance of many who said “the country was blessed by God”. “I tell my people about the dangers of not adhering to protocols, they laughed at me and told me it was not going to affect them,” he said. “I stopped leaders in the province from going to haus krais to stop transmissions.” East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said about 50 people had flown in for the recent funeral of the late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare in Wewak and when they left “four people died with about 140 cases reported”. The Covid-19 stirred up the house for a lively debate yesterday. Many leaders stood and told of their hardships in dealing with the virus and its impact. Former health minister Sir Puka Temu urged the Government to amend laws to align provincial health authorities (PHA) with governors to ensure information was being sent down to the people. However, Bird said that PHA in his province was not an issue. He said that the province was happy with the K2 million given to it but added that if hospitals were not better equipped, there would be issues. “We need to fix the medical issue, Covid-19 is transmitted by human beings which are spread (out), we need to look at areas where they are easily transmitted,” he said. “Meeting places are areas we need to look at to lessen the spread of the virus.” Bird told the leaders to ensure allowances were paid to frontline workers. Prime Minister James Marape told parliament that there needed to be partnership among the leaders and there needed to be support on both sides to ensure the Covid-19 was contained. “Forget the politics, let’s start thinking about the people,” he said. Stateement/TheNational/PNGPoliticsWatch Next : Note: Let Your Views be heard : Send all your Political Commentaries to us through our email : pngfacts@gmail.com Share this Comments are closed.
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