Departments, agencies urged to stop overspending

 FINANCE and Education Minister James Marape has called on departments and government agencies to avoid overspending this year.

He made the call when revealing that a debt of more than K200 million was owed by the National Capital District education division to private contractors.

“I’m now calling on all the departments and state agencies to refrain from over-committing their budget allocations,” he said. 

“There will be no more claims in 2014. We do not want to repeat the mistake by the Department of Education. You must spend as appropriated. 

“We are reviewing penalty clauses for those departments that over-spend their budgets.”

He said in 2010, he put a stop to such practices but the department when ahead to engage contractors in NCD, which resulted in the huge debt.

“I have no problems with paying the contracts but it must be within the budget appropriations,” he said.

“There are no other funds apart from what has been allocated to your respective departments.”

He said an investigation team would looking into contracts to find out who was really responsible for them.

He said people who did not follow processes would face disciplinary action.