Dion signs joint communiqué with governors

Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Governors Council Leo Dion on Wednesday night signed the joint communiqué at the New Ireland Provincial Government Assembly in Kavieng, concluding the 2014 National Governors Council Conference.
The joint communiqué was initially signed by the four governors representing each region and included Governors Gary Juffa (Southern), Jim Kas (Momase), Peter Ipatas (Highlands) and Ereman ToBainig Jr (NGI).
The two-day consultation conference themed "Nation building through inter-governmental relations" had sought views from the governors and was focused mainly on the role of the different levels of government in nation building.
"National unity cannot be taken for granted all these years after Independence.
"One of the ways I believe will assist our people to further instil our national identity is to make sure that people are meaningfully involved in the affairs of the country under the different levels of government as per the decentralization framework,"  Dion said.
When presenting his maiden statement to Parliament on September  6, 2012 as Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Inter-government Relations, he reflected largely on the performance of the three-tier system of government and the issue of service delivery.
"Like many Members of Parliament, I strongly made the point that a determined effort had to be mounted by all stakeholders to make sure that services were effectively reaching our people in rural areas without unnecessary delays and furthermore to see how the issues relating to service delivery and the application of the decentralization policy could be addressed," Dion said.
He said discussions in the past two days had had fruitful results and this could be proven in the joint communiqué.
"I can now take up these results to the National Executive Council and have it deliberated upon by our Cabinet ministers,"  Dion said.