B’ville passes K24m budget

By STEPHANIE ELIZAH
THE Bougainville House of Representatives successfully passed its supplementary budget of K24 million last Friday.
The budget, comprising K15 million of Bougainville’s restoration and development grant and K9 million from other sources, is geared towards investment and the consolidation of peace and development of the autonomous region.
But Autonomous Bougainville Government Finance Minister Albert Punghau has advised that with only a month remaining before the end of this year, not all projects that received funding would be implemented and completed on time.
He said a significant portion of the budgetary allocations had been towards meeting contractual obligations of the ABG.
“This means that resources have to be made available to complete development project that have remained incomplete in the past three years because funds were re-directed to other priority areas,” Punghau said.
Punghau summarised the expenditure of the 2011 supplementary budget as follows:
n    Headquarters operations for region wide projects (K6,058,000);
n    North Bougainville (K3,501,800);
n    Central Bougainville (K2,719,300);
n    South Bougainville (K2,720,900);
n    Buka Ring Road sealing (K5 million);
n    Panguna Mine negotiations (K2 million);
n    ABG Establishment Grant (K1 million); and
n    Panguna peace process (K1 million).
Punghau said other strategic expenditure items in the budget included:
n    Constituency support Grant (K1,025,000);
n    Bougainville People’s Congress entitlements (K860,000);
n    Bougainville Export Import Corporations (BEIC) shares purchase (K500,000);
n    Panguna mine negotiations (K2,500,000);
n    Support to Parliamentary Services and Bougainville Executive Council (K500,000);
n    Completion of President’s Office (K701,000); and
n    Konnou Peace Process (K100,000);
This is the first supplementary budget to be approved by the Momis-Nisira government since their election to office in June last year.