goodmorningpapaua – A Papuan Civil Service Ambassador Michael Manufandu assessed that President Joko Widodo’s policies had a positive impact on Papua. One of the benchmarks, in his view, is an infrastructure development.
“It used to be limited in infrastructure such as bridges and now it is increasing rapidly. The price of fuel rates has also been the same as other regions,” he said in the Papua Podcast webinar held by the European Association for Indonesia, Thursday (1/7) night.
Michael said Jokowi built a 4,231 kilometers road, so that all areas could be passed by cars. For information, Papua consists of 42 regencies and 560 districts.
Now the airport has even five international runways. “It used to be dark, now it has electricity, this is a spectacular progress,” said Michael.
In terms of authority to local governments (Pemda), Michael said that currently the central government is giving the widest possible autonomy. The government does not intervene with the extraordinary budgets.
“In other provinces it is not so. I always advise the Governor that you use this mandate as best you can. The Papua Special Autonomy Fund is a brilliant policy. As in the field of education, there are scholarships for Papuans so that they can study at home and abroad. So, there are no restrictions, discrimination, whoever has a competency, take, please!,” he explained.