Government needs to overhaul national, sub-national system: Bird

THE Government needs to overhaul the national and sub-national system to enable effective service delivery, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird says.
Bird made the comments referring to the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Governments, saying it was time to review the law.
“We need to fix the relationship between the national and sub-national so that things can flow a lot smoother,” he said.
“If you change the system, then you will be able to respond quickly in delivering services effectively.
“We have people on the ground but most times we are duplicating responsibilities,” Bird said. He said often government department officers did jobs that the provincial offices could do.
“The question is where is the cut off?
“There are difficulties in operations; we are not short of money and skills, and manpower, but the arrangements are making it cumbersome and difficult.
“We need a more effective system to manage things on the ground so we can get value for money.
“The projects that may cost the national government K10 million we at the provincial level can do it for K1m and we have proven that.
“I have an interest and I know the fact that PM is interested in creating 22 economies.
“In order to facilitate that to actually happen, we need to change the system so it becomes more conducive to achieve these things.
“Where you put the function, the funding must also be there,” he said.