Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo Declares That PNDS Will Continue.

Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo, officially inaugurates the multi-functions community centre at Soro village, Aileu.

“The Government will try to continue to implement development in your villages through programs like this (PNDS). This year a community center has been inaugurated, next year something else will be inaugurated, development will continue and this program will keep on moving forward”, said the Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo, during the inauguration of a multi-purpose community center in Soro Village, Ainaru Vila Administrative Post, Ainaro Municipality (14/03/2015).

The Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo encouraged the communities to look after these facilities properly, because they are the result of the community’s hard work.

“These State facilities need to be looked after properly, they should not be damaged, because they will

Multi-functions community centre at Soro village

facilitate your activities in order to develop your village. You have ownership over these State facilities and we hope that the PNDS Program will enable you to do achieve a lot in your village”, said the Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo.

The Prime Minister also stated that the PNDS Program will no longer be the responsibility of the Ministry of State Affairs and will be under a new Ministry, the Ministry for Planning and Strategic Investment.

In addition to this inauguration ceremony the Prime Minister Rui also examined budget books maintained by the community that related specifically to expenditure from operational funds and infrastructure funds, and he was really happy with the PNDS process that has produced good results, especially in terms of construction, because the projects were directly implemented by the community and the community feel that they have ownership over these constructions into the future.

During the process to identify priorities in Soro Village, the community jointly decided that a Multi-Functional

Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo, checks the community budget expenditures book, namely the operational and infrastructure budget expenditure

Community Center would be the top priority, because for a very long time the community in this village has had great difficulty gaining access to a public place to conduct a range of activities, for example social services from the Government that are provided to the sub-villages or village, for example programs like social security payments for the elderly, the Siska program, agriculture programs, education programs and other relevant programs implemented in their village. In the future the Soro Village community will not have to worry about having a public place, because the building that was constructed through the PNDS Program is finally complete and has been inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo.

Cipriano de Araujo, who is the Village Chief of Soro, thanked the Government for implementing the PNDS Program in villages across the national territory, and he asked for the Government to continue this program because it directly benefits the community. The Village Chief also said that the community has jointly decided to focus on basic infrastructure in its next plan, such as clean water and the rehabilitation of roads in the village linking the four sub-villages.

Soro Village has four sub-villages, namely Guerudo, Leolala, Poelau and Terlora. Leolala sub-village is the location of the Multi-Function Community Center because this sub-village is in a central location for the communities in the village. There are 408 families who will benefit from this construction. This center was built with a Village Grant of US$ 35,000, including the installation of a public toilet/washing/bathing facility.

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