leglected kieta

Still Awaits Its romised Wharf

a Bougainville Correspondent people of the Kieta area ugainville, with its town d on one of the finest and licturesque harbours in the

5, are an example of public

iness and community

less that other places could 11 to copy. town has a very strong social b—its building and con es are the envy of visitors jwnships four times its size, ib is by no means the result efforts of only the planting eminent section of the com but the result of the genuine ation of all members. Kieta the Bougainville home of L, the Bougainville Improve- Association and the Rifle Kieta Choral Festival is an it example of co-operation i Administration, private natives and Missions of all nations, and its committee is ed of representatives of all groups. The Festival, corn only four years ago, already visitors from as far as native people are working ir their own development and plantings of coconuts and vould already possibly equal, e expected to surpass, that Folai of the Gazelle Peninsula, in a few years the community particularly wealthy and the farmers themselves not in rable employers of labour. ;rs of Bougainville have faith Territory, as instanced by the opening of the Kieta Guest (soon, it is rumoured, to be sed hotel) with normal ac dation for 20 guests. There is been a move afoot by a floated association to invest in a modern cacao holding rtheless, the people of this and progressive area feel that re often overlooked by the Government in distant Port •y. Almost two years ago, istrator, Sir Donald Cleland, sd that Kieta would be given wharf—Bougainville’s

first —but it has not yet been started.

Although Sir Donald’s promise will be honoured in due course, local people feel that the island’s produc tion (greater than that of Papua) warrants immediate action. The Copra Marketing Board has made it clear that it will not establish a depot until a wharf is built.

Native planters are especially impatient—and in some instances even sceptical—about the wharf.

They feel that to have to pay an additional £7 per ton freight to the CMB depot at Rabaul is unfair, in view of their own efforts and self help. As one leader recently said, “We are building our own roads,

but we are incapable of building a big wharf”.

Another complaint in Kieta is the lack of a Medical Officer over the last six years, although there had been one stationed there since 1913.

Leaders in the community realise! that the Administration has many commitments. But they feel there should be a greater recognition by the central authority of the existing production, the revenues obtained* i the great potential and the prepared* ness of the Kieta community to j knuckle down to the job. Bougain-j \ ville people do not sit back and I vociferously demand the unreason- j able or unobtainable.