Supplementary budget amended

National

TREASURER Charles Abel says the supplementary budget he will table today will contain some changes to funding dictated by financial circumstances.
He was responding to East Sepik Governor Allan Bird who raised the concern that they only received about 10 per cent of the functional grants.
Bird said they were supposed to received K13 million this year but only received K400,000. It has resulted in the closure of 216 aid posts which cannot sustain service delivery.
“I want to understand whether you will still provide the functional grants to provinces because three quarters of the years is gone,” Bird said.
Abel said the supplementary budget would show the priority areas the Government was focusing on.
“Our Members of Parliament have decided to sacrifice the SIP programme on a temporary basis so that we are able to continue some of the basic goods and services,” Abel said.
“We are not cutting functional grants. They remain integral to running provincial governments through the governors.”
Abel said functional grants were what the Government provided to all provinces to provide services.
“They form a critical part of the funding that goes down to the provincial governments on an ongoing basis.
“PSIP and DSIP are from the capital part of the budget. It is from the development budget that the (previous) government introduced and we are now continuing.”