Walter Schanaubelt drives new ‘Konos Open Seat’ agenda

The push to have Sentral Niu Ailan Local Level Government in the Namatanai district to become an electorate in 2027 is about 90 percent finalised.

Namatanai MP Walter Schnaubelt who is directly involved in the creation of the new electorate revealed this recently during an awareness rally at Konos sub-district council chamber.

Sentral Niu Ailan LLG is the largest with 22 wards among five other LLGS with the highest population of 45,000 in the Namatanai district of New Ireland province.

Mr Schnaubelt who is passionate about creating a new electorate is working in consultation with the Provincial Boundaries Committee Chairman, Ricky Fugonto.

“I’m happy to announce that the provincial government under the leadership of our Governor Sir Julius Chan is working in collaboration with me to make Konos Open Seat a reality.

 “I don’t want us to get confused with political interference, Governor and I want to see a new electorate for Sentral Niu Ailan come into fruition. 

“The critical message here is that put politics aside and put the interest of Sentral Niu Ailan first. I commend Mr Fugonto and his team for the work done in coming up with a new open electorate,” he said.

The Namatanai MP explained that in the previous submission, over a dozen electorates were proposed in Papua New Guinea and as a result the proposed Konos Open Seat did not make it in the first batch.

“Under the constitution the Parliament is allowed to approve only five proposed electorates in a term.

“This is because fiscal responsibility to support all new electorates at the same time becomes very challenging and the government will struggle to fund it. This is why we couldn’t get through the first batch because we were competing with the others as well.

“Nevertheless, I fought hard and urged the government to consider a new open seat for Sentral Niu Ailan to be included in the second batch.

“I’m now building up the workforce team to make sure we must be in the second batch,” he said.

Meanwhile, it is understood the proposed boundaries for the new open seat would include Ramat to Bol on the east coast, Naiama to Kokola on the west coast and Tabar with its three islands of the Sentral Niu Ailan LLG.

According to the Provincial Boundaries Committee, the proposed number of LLGs would include Central East, Central West and Tabar Group of Islands.

According to Chairman of Provincial Boundaries Committee Ricky Fugonto, Konos is well established already with its own administration and council which is not a problem because it has existing facilities readily available to be utilised.

“I would like to thank the open member for Namatanai for assisting at his level to push for new Konos electorate to be a reality in the future,” Mr Fugonto said.