FORMER PM SAYS PNG IS IN "FOOLS PARADISE" PAPUA New Guinea today is in “Fools Paradise’, former Prime Minister and New Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan said yesterday. Sir Julius who was one of the founding fathers of the nation said this during the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee inquiry into Telkom PNG at Parliament House yesterday. He said 30 years ago communication was so effective that a District Commissioner using VHF (very high frequency) radio to communicate with the kiaps or district administrators to get situation reports on the ground at the patrol posts. He said the VHF radio was functioning very well before during the early years of the country’s independence to this modern age of communication technology. “Communication today (in rural areas) is worst than 30 years ago. We now have better skills, more money and better technology. All the problems today is because of poor communication.” “Before, the district commissioners get situation reports on law and order issues, land issues and others to help maintain control over the situation on the ground.” Sir Julius said the use of simple communication technology such as the VHF radio in the early years of independence helped maintain a lot of law and order issues and development issues. He said with the skilled people, space age communication technology and more money available than ever before the country cannot get the communication as well as other basic services to the rural people of the country. “But today we are in fools paradise.” Sir Julius said. Sir Julius who is a member of the Public Accounts Committee stated this when posing some questions to the Telikom (PNG) management team who were summoned to appear at the Inquiry into the break down in communications in the rural areas of PNG. He asked the Telikom management what has happened to VHF radio communication network and whether Telikom with the assistance of satellite communication can link the rural areas of the country. Telikom (PNG) chief executive officer Charles Litau in reply agreed that a lot of the old communication systems have been allowed to deteriorate over the years. He gave his assurance that Telikom would start rehabilitating some of the old receiver and transmitter sites back into operations. He also gave his undertaking that Telikom would look at all the high tech communications system available including satellite for effective communication network in the future.//Source:PC
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:18:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015