It will be a first of its kind for the LLG Elections to be conducted after almost 2 years from the last General Elections. Now whether the O'Neil government is serious or not is a huge question with a lot of doubts in the minds of many Papua New Guineans. If there will ever be one, then it looks more like a half hearted affair. From the general affairs of government at this time, LLGs specifically ward members (councillors) and council presidents have over time lost their powers and become effectively useless since independence. Many are used as rubber stamps and election campaign fronts to win support for the people. Even the recent creation of the District Development Authority (DDA) has not been friendly to these two groups of leaders. DDA is basically a campaign strategy designed to elevate the status of individual open MPs through direct service delivery as a way of winning support from the people for their next win. Decisions for service delivery at the ward level has been taken away from the ward members and presidents reducing them to mere spectators. Instead of working with them by decentralising service delivery so that credit is equally shared as is a must for nominated leaders, Open MPs have taken over everything. If the government does not want to hold LLG elections, it can comfortably do so because according to its modus operandi, LLG Presidents and Ward Members are just a waste of time. They have become obsolete, irrelevant and nothe functional. The government did not even pass a bill to do that. They just created the DDA and rendered the ward members and council presidents powerless. Any recognition given to them is just to maintain status quo.
