Don Polye's THE Party endorses three candidates in Sandaun Province

THE Opposition Leader Don Polye's Triumph Heritage Empowerment party on Friday (05/05/17) endorsed three candidates to vie for Sandaun regional, Aitape-Lumi and Telefomin seats out of five seats in the province.

They are former governor John Tekwie, Carmillus Wulal and former MP Peter Iwei respectively.

Two seats where the party has not fielded a candidate each are his fellow Opposition MP Belden Namah's Vanimo-Green seat and Nuku Open.
Mr Polye was in the province to launch their election campaign and his alternative government policies.

Speaking to hundreds of people in Vanimo town yesterday (Friday), he said THE party laid two major policy platforms among others for Sandaun-Free Economic Zone, Downstream Processing and Eradication of Corruption.

He assured the people that when his party formed the next government, in his first 100-days in office the province would be turned into a free-economic zone hub.
Polye said PM O'Neill got the K3 billion UBS loan to salvage a cash-strapped company and did not to invest it in economic programs like this.

"The province is in a strategic location to facilitate trade from the North as it shares land border with Indonesia's West Papua province," he told them.
He stressed that his party understood the development challenges each province faced, saying he has sustainable economic programs for them to improve their people's livelihood and lift their profile.

Polye also said he would build a new state-of-the-art market and, sewage and sanitation facility for the province if they voted in his three candidates this election.

"I will increase the LLGSIP funds to K1 million per year. It was my idea to give K500,000 each to LLG presidents annually. However, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill scaled it down to K100,000," he said.

He said when THE party would implement economic programs and not projects like seen today from which their spin-off benefits are only one-off.
According to Polye, this policy is people-oriented and it will make many citizens millionaires.

He further said mining and petroleum industry would come under Free-Economic Zone policy.
"We will integrate those programs with our people and markets for their sustainability. Free-Economic Policy has been proven to be a success across the world.

"China, Singapore, Mongolia and European countries have implemented the FEZ policy which has taken their country's profile to where they are," he said.
Sandaun province's main wharf, he said, will be upgraded to an international one.

Former MP for Telefomin and THE party candidate Peter Iwei hugging Polye at Vanimo Airport last Friday (05/05/17). Image: PNG Opposition Media Unit.