Govt releases K166mil for DSIP: Marape

PRIME Minister James Marape says the Government has released K166.5 million in total to members of parliament under the district services improvement programme (DSIP).
He said the funding came with guidelines on areas where it was to be used.
“This is not a free money for MPs. One million for agriculture and K500,000 for small and medium enterprises (SME) are in the package. You can see your MPs and access these funds in the district,” Marape said.
Marape said the Government was building enabling infrastructures to benefit farmers in terms of getting the best price for their produce.
Marape said this during launching of the coffee development road map and strategic business plan in Goroka, Eastern Highlands, on Thursday.
He said coffee growers across the country needed to get the right price to encourage them to keep steady production.
“CIC aims to produce three million bags of coffee by 2030,” he said.
“At the moment we are producing 600,000 to 700,000 bags which is far less than what we produced in 2011 which was over one million bags.
“The Government put K200 million parked in BSP, Kina bank and National Development Bank (NDB) where people can get loans to do agro-economic activities.”