Now that the Babeldaob Compact Road has been completed and our National Government with many of its operating components have been established on Ngerulmud Hill In Melekeok, our public leaders should begin thinking and planning how to facilitate the expected shift of population from Koror to the big island of Babeldaob that these events have set in motion. We have written before about this potentially huge developmental program for the Republic and we would like to remind our public leaders about it again in this column.
It is probably safe to say that a major population shift from crowded Koror to Babeldaob will occur in the next twenty five years. It is possible that by the year 2035 an overwhelming majority of our young, able-bodied citizens, who have roots on Babeldaob, would be residing, or plan to reside, on Babeldaob and these people would need all the support they could get from their Government to help them establish their roots in their ancestral villages. Palauan citizens from the other islands of Palau, may also like to settle on Babeldaob, as their parents did on Koror, many years back.Aside from the usual public services and facilities (Water, power, phones, medical services, schools,etc.) that they will need, they will also need public programs that could provide them with financial supports to build their homes and businesses.
It is time that the OEK and the Executive Branch should take a close look at the Palau Housing Authority and the Palau National Development Bank to see if these institutions could provide the kind of services that would contribute to the physical and economic developments of Babeldaob in the coming decades. Perhaps the purposes and missions of these institutions should be redefined so that they would be more pro-active in providing the kind of services the coming generation would need to develop the country.
The Palau Housing Authority should be provided with additional funds to help those young people who would wish to establish their homes on Babeldaob. And sufficient funds should be provided to the National Development Bank so that it may establish a “Production Loan Fund” to provide financial assistances to individuals and small businesses who would like to engage in commercial agriculture, development of marine resources activities, and craft-related enterprises. All of these initiatives would need “hard cash” and that is why it is very important that our public leaders should begin thinking about how Babeldaob’s development could be financed and sustained in the next twenty-five years. Elimination of expensive and fruitless programs would be a step in the right direction.
One area that could slow or even halt for months the resettlement process on Babeldaob is the land ownership question on this island. This problem exists on all the islands of Palau, but on Babeldaob where the majority of the Republic’s dry lands are located, the problem could particularly be very acute and their settlements or solutions could be very time-consuming. From past records, settlements of land ownerships here in Palau have been known to take many years, and this situation may very well be the major stumbling block for the development and settlement of Babeldaob. Speeding up work on Land surveys and the work of the Land Court would tremendously help the resettlements on Babeldaob.
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