Papua New Guinea's Deputy Prime Minister has been this morning briefing provincial Governors of plans to reduce the legislative powers of provincial governments.
Puka Temu has outlined the plans at the National Development Summit at PNG's Institute of Public Administration.
Our correspondent, Oseah Philemon, reports that the national government appears keen to dismantle the decentralisation process which it was hoped would improve service delivery throughout the country.
"IN:......But now they seem to think otherwise, the government seems to think provincial governments are not ensuring the delivery of basic services to the rural areas. And therefore it's trying to weaken them by taking away their ability to legislate through their provincial assemblies. They're establishing a taskforce that would tour the country, consult with the provincial governments and the public about how is the best way of doing this and a lot of people see this as just another atempt by the government to take away powers from the provincial governments and make the central government more powerful than it is already."
Oseah Philemon
