House reps not happy

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday 23rd November 2011

By STEPHANIE ELIZAH
MEMBERS of the Bougainville House of Representatives are unhappy with their constitutional grant of K1,025,000 from the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s (ABG) supplementary budget that was passed last Friday.
Before approving the appropriation of the K24 million supplementary budget for this year, some members of the House said they were unhappy with the small grants they had been allocated.
Member for Tsitalato Cosmas Sohia urged the ABG to give more money to the region’s 41 constituency members so they could deliver more projects in their constituencies.
“You help us so that our constituents will know we are delivering,” he said.
“This is the kind of lack of support you provided and many of our former members never made it back in the last election.
“It is because of us that you are sitting in your seats,” warned Sohia.
ABG members expressed disappointment at what they felt was a lack of consideration in appropriating their constitutional grants.
Each member will receive K25,000.
But ABG finance minister Albert Punghau assured the members they would get more assistance as soon as the IRC returned Bougainville’s internal revenue of K1.2 million that was “locked up” in Port Moresby.
He said there was no time set on when IRC would release the money but when it did, the members would receive additional grants.