Masere grilled and urged to provide detailed explanation on National Census outcome

Administrative Minister Richard Masere was under scrutiny today with members of parliament firing questions at him on the progress of the National Census.

The minister responsible for National Census was directly asked during parliament session this morning to provide an update of the nationwide project with member for Pomio, Elias Kapavore, opening the proceedings.

“Can the minister give an update on the progress of the national census, and when does he think that national census will be completed?” Mr Kapavore asked.

Despite Mr Masere responding bluntly to Kapavore’s question, he was bombarded by supplementary questions from Southern Highlands governor William Powi, member for Hiri-Koiari Keith Iduhu, and reinstated Madang MP Brian Kramer.

Mr Iduhu raised an important matter regarding the payment of allowances to enumerators, which was a concern before the start of the national census on June 16.

The Hiri-Koiari MP supposed that enumerators have not been sorted out and asked Mr Masere when the allowances would be paid.

Meanwhile, Mr Kramer was keen to know how the initial government funding [K200 million] allocated for the census was used over the past two months.

He asked the finance minister to reveal how much money from the Marape-Rosso government was released to the Administrative Services department in the process of population count.

East Sepik Governor Allan Bird also questioned Mr Masere to explain how the census allocated fund was used including those of which were provided by the provinces.

Before these serious concerns were raised by the political leaders, Governor Powi asked the speaker of Parliament Job Pomat to allow Mr Masere to assemble a detailed speech to explain to the nation how the census was handled since the start.

“National census is not a small thing, it's a matter of national importance and in my view, it cannot be just answered in five- or ten-minutes’ question time,” Mr Powi said when raising a supplementary question.

“I ask the minister to detail a parliamentary statement so we can see where we are. Let the minister provide a detailed statement on where we are in terms of the census.

“The challenges, the successes in some provinces, the sub-national government support, funding support. It's an important matter, so let's allow that.”

The nationwide census has been widely criticized and dubbed as a failed project, prompting MPs to question the administration of Mr Masere and NSO over the matter.

However, Mr Masere reaffirmed the government’s commitment to complete the census exercise which should indicate PNG’s population.

He said a report would be tabled in parliament to outline the failures and success of the national census