Marape warns dept heads, administrators to stick to budget

Finance Minister James Marape has warned heads of departments and provincial administrators that failure to stick to budgets will result in non-renewal of their contracts.
Marape, at the Leaders’ Summit yesterday, told public servants that management of funds was the mandate of departmental heads.
“It is important that you stick to budget no matter how hard the time is,” he said
Marape said there was an increase of K400 million for emoluments in districts and provinces.
He said in the personal emoluments for provinces and districts, there was a budget blow out.
“We budgeted for K1.5 billion, we spent K1.9 billion,” Marape said.
“Provincial administrators, this comes directly within your control.
“If heads of department do not stick to budget, they don’t deserve renewal of contract.
“We have been trying to control personal emoluments, but the trend I am seeing is there is an increase of about K400 million.”
Meanwhile, Marape said the department had delivered strong improvements in expenditure management and overseen a compressive range of public finance management (PFM) reforms.
“Their efforts have greatly improved our capacity to prudently manage our financial resources to effectively support service delivery to our people,” he said.
“While the public expenditure and financial accountability (PEFA) road map concluded at the end of 2018, we will continue to purse improvement in PFM areas.”