Governor slams K170mil wastage

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday July 2nd, 2013

 By CLEMENT KAUPA

MOROBE Governor Kelly Naru is blaming a lack of communication between the departments of Finance and Works for the wastage of K170 million on the upgrading of roads in Lae city.  

“The Lae city roads, as you can see today, are not the best and that is because the departments of Finance and Works did not work together well,” Naru told Prime Minister Peter O’Neill last week in Lae.

Naru said all funds and decisions for Lae city roads were handled by the Finance Department, which failed to work with the Works Department, resulting in poor coordination and procurement.

“Dialogue and coordination between the departments of Works, Finance with the Morobe provincial government, Lae city council and Lae Chamber of Commerce was almost zero,” Naru claimed. 

“Let us not repeat the past organisation and arrangement.”

O’Neill said K100 million awarded by his government this year remained parked at Waigani because he wanted competent companies to be awarded contracts before funds were released.

“My government will closely monitor work and any company found to be providing substandard work will be blacklisted,” he said

O’Neill confirmed speculation that a new private electricity supplier would be sourced for Lae city as was done for Port Moresby.

“There are a lot of demands and pressure from the highlands provinces too for reliable power supply and my government will look into that,” O’Neill told people in Lae.