Decision rests with provinces

NATIONAL Executive Council (NEC) will not determine the method of election for council presidents, says Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso.
He said this decision was left to respective Provincial Executive Councils (PECs) who represent the people in their provinces.
He said NEC only acted on PECs resolutions on whether council presidents would be voted by the people or by ward councillors.
Rosso said the move to allow the decision to be done by PEC was due to conflicting requests from different provinces, mostly pressure from the governors.
“So NEC said to go back to their PECs to recommend what sort of mode of election they would determine for local level government (LLG) elections in their provinces,” he said.
Rosso noted a total of eight provinces – all Highlands including Morobe, chose to maintain the current system of electing LLG presidents by the ward councillors.
Morobe PEC earlier this year saw only eight voted against the current system while 12 voted for it.
However, this had seen a division with majority of the people calling for this decision to be reconsidered and to allow the people to vote for both the ward councillors and council presidents.
“NEC or the national government will not impose on what sort of form of election the people of Morobe want,” he said.
“Like other provinces, Morobe’s representative is Tutumang and PEC has recommended that council presidents be voted in by the councillors.”
Rosso further confirmed that there was funding budgeted for LLG elections, however refused to comment on the exact figure that would be available.