Lack of capacity a major drawback, Kipalan says

 A LACK of capacity in local level governments and district administrations is a major drawback in the delivery of government services and implementation of projects, says newly-elected Enga deputy governor and Wabag rural LLG president Roy Kipalan.

He made the remark during a meeting of senior provincial public servants and provincial assembly members in Wabag last Friday.

In light of the government’s plan to give K500,000 to each LLG in the country on top of the millions of kina that were given to districts through the local MPs, the lack of capacity to utilise those funds on development programmes and service delivery remained a major obstacle, Kipalan said.

“I am happy with the current government for trying to pump millions of kina to the LLGs and district administrations through the local MPs. However, the biggest problem is the lack of capacity in terms of having qualified engineers, architects, doctors, trained project managers, lawyers, magistrates, judges and other professionals to assist the LLGs in planning and implementing the programmes,” he said.

Kipalan said if the issue of capacity-building in the LLGs and districts was not seriously addressed, millions of kina would continue to be misused by a handful of people.

“There is nothing wrong with millions of kina being allocated to the districts through the district services improvement programme (DSIP) and others. 

“The LLGs were given a lot of money in the past five years. But the fact remains that nothing has been achieved in terms of using those funds. The funds were grossly misused because of the mere fact that there was no capacity to implement the programmes,” he said.