Lawyer queries Morobe government grants

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

A LAWYER has questioned the Morobe government’s policy on local level government unconditional grant which has been in use in the past decade.

Passingan Taru claims no dates appear on the unconditional grant policy document which has been in operation or has been the legal basis for drawing of funds by local level government presidents.

Taru pointed out what he saw as gross the non-implementation of the Morobe’s unconditional grant since 1998 when it came into force.

From an initial allocation of K130,000, the total funding had risen to K200,000 covering the three sectors of social development, infrastructure and economic development.

“If this is the case, everyone wants to know why there has not been any tangible developments taken place between 2007 and 2012 in the districts of Morobe which includes community projects such as social development sector, health education, community development and infrastructures such as roads, airstrips, jetties and so forth,” Taru said in a statement.

He said the ward councillors must confront the LLG manager and treasury office and demand the disclosure of the grants records.

President of the Wampar LLG and provincial law and order chairman Peter Namus, on behalf of the provincial government, said it was K200,000 on paper 

but in reality they got less than that.

He said last year, the 33 presidents of Morobe received K50,000 while only K30,000 was allocated to the LLGs.

“Unfortunately we did not put into practice (the allocation of funds to the sectors) because we don’t get what is printed in the budget as the policy said, its 

concurrent since the day we came and we can’t do much especially with K30,000 or K50,000,” he said.