District faces funding challenges

There are limited funds to cover all sectors in Rai Coast, Madang, an official says.
Rai Coast administrator Michael Pamaraka made this known when he presented the 2017 and 2018 district improvement programme fund (DSIP) acquittals to the Department of Implementation and Rural Development (DIRD) .
“Whatever little that was allocated to the district was spent on the priority areas such as roads,”he said last Friday.
“We also put little money into health and education.
“In 2017, the district received K8 million and much of those funds went to road and school fee subsidies. In 2018, the district received less than K5 million which is half of the total DSIP fund.
“That was not enough to benefit the whole district due to the scattered and remoteness of the district.”
DIRD acting secretary for Mamose Lydia Ekonia commended Pamaraka for being up to date with the report.
“Rai Coast is very good at acquittal presentation but the district annual budget plan is still outstanding,” she said.
Ekonia said the budget cut in the supplementary budget 2019 will affect them as any other electorate in PNG but they should use whatever given to priority areas until the economy improves.