Development funds frozen until Sept 30

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The Ombudsman Commission has issued a direction effective yesterday that all development funds held in provinces and districts are frozen – conditionally.
This is to prevent misuse during election time.
Chief Ombudsman Michael Dick told a press conference that the commission  received information on concerns about the release, disbursements, transfers and receipts of the public money purporting to be in the form of electoral, discretionary funds and various development funds.
“The direction is lawful under the law and any of the persons named in the direction is required to comply, failing that it is subject to prosecution,” Dick said.
“The purpose of this direction is to put a conditional freeze on all the DSIP and PSIP funds and all development grants that go into the account from which all operations are carried out by all the provincial governments and district administrations.
“This is a conditional freeze in the sense that the commission is not going to put any permanent stop to any development process,  any development programme that is going on within the respective districts. But all the payments, that have to be made within this period of the election which starts from today (April 20), we will have to screen them.”
The period of the direction is from April 20 to Sept 30.