Department needs more funds

THE Department of Implementation and Rural Development (DIRD) must be adequately funded so it can perform one of its key role of inspection and monitoring projects in districts.
This department has a very important role in supporting the Government deliver improved services to every province, district and local level government throughout the country.
It administers the service improvement programme (SIP) which includes monitoring and inspection of projects, evaluating of acquittals and reports.
All these, however, cannot be done as the department has no funds to send out its officers.
DIRD officers together with fellow officers from National Planning and Monitoring Department are expected to actually visit the district to tick off on the report.
Take for instance, a school inspector has the responsibility of monitoring a teacher’s performance.
The inspector visits the school, checks out the teachers programme, observers and rates them accordingly.
This then goes on the teacher’s performance report for a promotion and appraisal at the end of the year.
The same principle applies for DIRD.
They monitor projects that are initiated by Members of Parliament that are funded through the PSIP (provincial service improvement programme).
Each year, Government allocates about K1.2 billion in SIP to districts and provinces.
DIRD secretary Aihi Vaki says the department has no physical foresight of projects implement in 89 wards and 22 provinces due to limited financial capacities.
The department is dependent on reports from district development authorities and provincial administrators.
Since funds are being distributed right down to the district level, the accountability process must be strident so auditing must also be done at the district level.
There must be compliance and monitoring of where these huge sums of money were spent and take stock of state properties such as machineries purchased under public funds (DSIP & PSIP).
Road must be built, electricity must be connected to villages and communities so that economic activities can take place so people’s livelihood can transform.
The SIPs are meant for funding development projects and services rural areas.
Every project acquitted in the SIP report should represent actual development on the ground.
Vaki says decentralisation is a good Government policy whereby, provinces and districts have control over their development affairs.
But, they should be responsible in providing statistics on all development that is taking place in respective centres.
Decentralisation, helps provinces/districts to focus on their service delivery and know their development needs, issues, example, where the roads should cut through and water supply should be.
And with decentralisation, it was not the responsibility of political leaders to deliver services. Instead, responsibility lies with the administrators.
Provincial administrators and district development authorities (DDA) are the ones to provide the DIRD with a clear picture of the development occurring in the 89 districts and 22 provinces.
Provincial and district administrators are taking charge of schools, district and provincial roads, health facilities and economic activities in the provinces and districts, thus acquittals must be submitted always on
time.
Just receiving annual reports in Waigani will not tell you the real story.
Voters also have a right to check with their MPs and the public servants working in district development authorities (DDAs) and provincial governments. These are the people responsible for delivering goods and
services.
Going forward, the DIRD must be fully funded by the government to inspect and monitor SIP projects in the country so that funds are spent on what is intended for and not submitting fake or falsified acquittals
reports for compliance sake.