Districts to get monthly funding of K1mil

By LUKE KAMA
THE Government is looking at releasing the first K1 million of district services improvement programme (DSIP) funds next week and will release K1 million monthly, Finance Minister James Marape says.
Marape, who is also the Minister for Rural Development, said this yesterday during release of administrative guidelines and financial instructions for service improvement programme (SIP) funds.
This was developed by the Department of Implementation and Rural Development (Dird).
“Statistics have shown that about 85 per cent of our people continue to live in the rural parts of our country,” Marape said.
“That is the majority of our people while less than 15 per cent live in urban centres.
“To drive change in the districts, the Government is focusing on empowering provinces and districts. Over the last five years, from 2012-2017, each of the 89 districts in the country received K42 million in the form of DSIP funds.
“In 2017, we revived the 2017 supplementary budget, where 80 per cent of the funds were cut because of the tough economic situation and only K2m was given.
“In total, K3.7 billion was remitted directly to districts over the last five years.” He said for PSIP, a total of K1.64 billion was transferred.
“These funds are making huge difference in the rural districts and provinces by bringing in much-needed developments and services,” Marape said.
He said the DSIP and PSIP allocations were policy decision of the Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
“Going forward, the Government is looking at reviewing the necessary laws to make DSIP and PSIP allocations become part of the country’s law,” Marape said.
“The functions of releasing SIP funds are now being transferred from Finance to Dird.”