Transcript
While in Buka, James Marape addressed the autonomous region's House of Representatives, where he announced the 10-year infrastructure plan for Bougainville.
The facility would provide 28.7 million US dollars a year for what the prime minister described as "key economic enablers of the region".
The autonomous Bougainville government is expected to decide where the money is directed.
Bougainville's president John Momis recently reminded PNG's parliament that the national government had failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in annual Restoration and Development grant funds owed to the Autonomous Bougainville Government since 2005.
"Most years since the ABG was established, the national government has paid the ABG a mere fraction of what the constitutional laws say the ABG should receive."
Mr Momis reminded PNG MPs that there was no provision in the 2019 national budget for payment of the grant.
"Without the proper payment of this grant, the ABG can do very little to improve services and provide infrastructure in Bougainville. The problems with this grant have contributed to a growing sense of frustration amongst Bougainvilleans with the autonomy arrangements."
This context was not lost on former Bougainville militant commander Donald Tato, following this week's announcement by the PNG government.
"Now they're coming up with another promise. But they have not been owning up on the funds stipulated on the Peace Agreement, so when you haven't owned up with those funds, where would you get the other money?"
Mr Marape has acknowledged there was much ground to cover for PNG government in terms of trust and honouring outstanding work in Bougainville.
Mr Tato, who is involved in the ongoing weapons disposal process on Bougainville, says he hopes the funding will be used to ensure Bougainville makes more out of its many natural agricultural resources than it's currently doing.
"A local company based in Rabaul comes to Bougainville. It buys some cocoa from our farmers, and it ships it to Rabaul... it ships it to Rabaul, then it's exported out of Rabaul, and the tax levy goes to the East New Britain provincial government - that's where Rabaul is. Those are the things that I believe we can put that right."
An education consultant from Bougainville, Rachael Konaka, says building human capacity should be a priority area for any new funding.
She says Bougainville lacks educational institutions and has a lot of high school drop-outs.
"So if there was more support given to, like, vocational training or some institutions like teachers colleges that'd be really good. These things are to (prepare) us for independence. Because I'm looking at post-referendum. So what happens after the referendum? We can all decide to vote for independence but do we have the capacity?"
She also cites long neglected health services in Bougainville.
"There's also a need for more local nurse aides to be trained as well. because at the moment we have the nursing college in Arawa, but there are no medicines as well at the clinics. So general government services that improve the livelihoods of people."
Meanwhile, the Bougainville Referendum Commission briefed the PNG and Bougainville governments on preparations for the vote which begins on November 23rd
Chief Referendum Officer Mauricio Claudio said ballot papers had been printed, and that a wide-ranging enrolment process was underway.
He also announced a provisional balloting system, to ensure no voter is turned away.
"If a person is not found on the referendum roll at his or her polling location, he or she will be offered a provisional ballot which will be checked later to make sure the person is indeed entitled to vote. And if the person is found on the entirety of the roll, that vote will be entered into the scrutiny. Otherwise, the vote will be cast aside."
But Mr Claudio alerted the governments to an issue - more information is needed about the two options on the ballot paper - greater autonomy or independence for Bougainville.
"However the BRC right now doesn't have a lot of information coming from the government. So far what we have is only the one-sentence definition for each of the two options. And we don't even have it in Tok Pisin. The BRC will be submitting a paper to the two governments to get assistance on getting more information."
Meanwhile, the PNG prime minister encouraged all parties involved in the referendum to rally the Melanesian consensus spirit for peace and prosperity in Bougainville.
His offer of a funding facility could be seen as an olive branch to Bougainvilleans in the hope that they'll vote to remain with PNG.
