Game’s on for governors

By JEFFREY ELAPA
ENGA Governor Grand Chief Peter Ipatas has challenged other governors in the country to compete with him to deliver services in their provinces, districts and wards, when announcing a record K216.68 million provincial budget yesterday.
Dubbed “action governor”, Ipatas said: “The prime minister has shifted responsibility from Waigani to us in the provinces and districts and now it is up to us to deliver to impact the lives of our people after missing out on such intervention over the years.
“We have to take ownership and we must make sure that funds are spent where they are meant to be spent.
“The prime minister has clearly created a competition among us. It is now governor versus governor, province versus province, district versus district and ward versus ward.
“We will see who will perform and who will not.
“It is time to put money where our mouth is. And, this time, we have no excuse,” he said.
Ipatas said the onus was on the provinces and districts to take ownership of the national government’s action to redirect funding to deliver and liberate the rural areas to impact the lives of the people.

The challenge in the past was always funding but that has been removed with the national government shifting expenditure priority from Waigani to the provinces and from line departments to provincial administrations.
“I am ready to implement the government’s priorities as per the prime minister’s instructions,” Ipatas said.
The K216.68 million for this year was an increase of more than K100 million from the previous year (K114.9 million).
Enga has received K175.864 million of national government grants, function grants, development grants and mining and petroleum grants while the provincial revenue stands at about K40.812 million.
Ipatas said these funds included the district services improvement programmes of K10 million each for the five districts, the special support grants of K4.4 million and the provincial government grant of K25 million.
He said his major expenditure sectors were education which would receive K46.6 million, health K9.4 million, Village Court K2.3 million, transport infrastructure maintenance K12 million and primary produce and agriculture K4.1 million.
Health has been allocated K3.1 million with K5 million coming from the national government for the Enga Provincial Hospital.
He also announced several major and ongoing projects to be continued in the New Year.
They are: Wabag town road sealing K10 million, Wabag-Kompiam road K5 million, Yampu-Londol road K2 million, Wapenamanda Airport fencing K8 million, Enga Teachers College K6.1 million, Hela Opena  Technical College K3 million, Enga Nursing College K1 million, rural electrification K1.3 million, waste and sewerage system K1 million, community improvement programmes K1.7 million, sports facility development K1 million and culture and tourism promotion K3 million.