AS Parliament meets next August following the 2027 national general election there will be six added seats in the legislature.
These new seats to be represented by their first members of parliament will be Anglimp, Baining, Baniara, Mendi Central, Middle Sepik and Motu-Koitabu – all created following recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.
Anglimp will be separate from the present Anglimp-South Waghi electorate of Jiwaka, Baining from Gazelle in East New Britain, Baniara from Alotau in Milne Bay, Mendi Central from Imbonggu in Southern Highlands, and Middle Sepik from Angoram in East Sepik.
From a purely electoral boundaries perspective, the creation of these new electorates has been long overdue.
The justification has been there for some time: large, sometimes isolated geographical territories, and population numbers that deserved separate representation. No one can dispute that.
However, an old argument keeps surfacing in the debate around the devolution of power to the lowest possible level in the political power hierarchy.
The devolution of power and the offices or institutions created as a result of it should function well enough to serve the constituency they are intended to serve.
Otherwise, that transfer of power will be devoid of adequate resourcing to make it work. Critical resources are personnel and the financial capacity they need to perform their roles.
Waigani-based public servants and those at provincial centres would not want to be posted to offices at district or LLG headquarters only to find themselves without resources necessary for them to work with.
That has been one critical factor today.
With enough political will, decentralisation of political power is somewhat straightforward and achievable.
Legislate, create the offices and elect or appoint the officials to those offices.
However, the allocation of financial and other resources to actually make the offices and the public service structures under those offices function optimally is easier said than done.
The new electorates will require new administrative offices and public service positions which can be funded over time.
But to ensure those public offices deliver the goods and services required of them is another matter.
There is enough evidence around the country that resources do not get down to those offices as easily as expected.
In the worst possible scenario a political and or public service office at the district or LLG only gets a paper allocation and waits with cynical hope for the next financial year. The existing revenue raising and distribution cannot meet the growing needs.
Provincial revenue raising via goods and services tax (GST) should be reconfigured so provinces get to retain much more of what is raised within their boundaries while the central government retains export returns.
Besides, more aggressive investment efforts in provinces should be pursued so provincial governments can then be able to allocate funding to districts and LLGs rather than relying mainly on the central government in Waigani.
Instead of decentralising further purely based on geography and population size, there has to be pause and rethink of the whole exercise.
Instead of increase the size of the electorate or the number of electorates, greater effort should be made in better allocation of resources and in ensuring there is efficient use of those resources.
The greater challenge to address is increasing resources and granting some financial autonomy to existing electorates and provinces to improve service delivery rather than creating more electorates and starving them of resources.
Districts and local level governments must have some sense of financial self-reliance or autonomy to be able to function rather than being wholly reliant on provincial governments who in turn rely on Waigani.
The cycle of want and expectation will continue if nothing is done at this stage. Creating more electorates does not automatically entail better service delivery to the LLG or ward level.
That is dependent on there being adequate resources — better than before when those new electorates were still part of the old electorates they been separated from.
Without that there is little realistic hope that the creation of new electorates would significantly improve service delivery to the lowest levels of government.
