K5bil used for district services: Minister

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Nearly K5 billion has been used over the last five years to cater for district services improvement programme funds (DSIP) Finance and Rural Development Minister James Marape says.
Marape said that since 2012 the government had been allocating funding, K4.7 billion in total to help develop districts and provinces.
He said nearly 90 per cent of the country’s population still lived in the rural areas and it was part of the Government’s plan to ensure that these people also received government services.
“The national government, though it has been delivering services and infrastructure in some parts of the country, is not able to oversee the development of the whole country,” he said.
“The Government therefore has been allocating DSIP to develop and bring government services to the 89 districts in the country.”
Marape said that from 2012 to 2016, K10m was allocated to each of the 89 districts.
“However, only K2m was allocated last year (2017) due to everything that happened in that year, like the national general elections etc,” he said.
“So if you add all that up, K4.7 billion was given for DSIP.”
“In five years, each district will have received K42m. So by now there should be some tangible changes or developments on the ground.”