Jakarta – Papua's five-year-old special autonomy status has done nothing to lift social conditions for the majority of Papuan people thanks to the poor allocation of autonomy funds, said the Papuan People's Assembly (MPR) in Australia on Tuesday.

Huge amounts of money have to be allocated for development programs in education, health and infrastructure, said MPR chairman Agus Alue Alua at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"A bigger part of the huge autonomy funds has been spent to finance the bureaucracy and I regret Papuan authorities (cannot cope with)... HIV/AIDS or (alcoholism) among locals," he said.

"Most Papuan people have yet to accept the special autonomy as something that could improve their social welfare," he told Antara. He said the main problem in Papua was not the 2001 special autonomy law, but its implementation.