Mine funds not yet part of money plan

 WESTERN is expecting additional funds from the new arrangement with Ok Tedi, Governor Ati Wobiro says.

Wobiro said that on Friday when commenting on his province’s budget of K300 million for 2014.

“This does not include the funds we are expecting from the new arrangement with Ok Tedi,” Wobiro said.

“In the presentation to the Minister for Treasury, I told him that I’m expecting to do a supplementary budget once the agreement is put in place.

“The effect of the new agreement is that it will trigger the inflow of funds that PNGSDP has been investing overseas.

“I have asked the prime minister that for the next two years,  I want massive funds coming in so that we can develop all our roads, our hospitals, our schools, fixing all those things that we ever wanted to fix.

“The funds we are expecting from Stanley (gas) are not included in the budget. That will happen once the new agreement is signed.

“There were some underpayments from special support grants which were not included.”

Wobiro said the province was reviewing its organisational structure.

“One of the decisions made by the provincial assembly and the provincial executive council was a new organisational structure for the province.

“The existing one didn’t work so we decided that with our new provincial administrator, we needed to do a restructure.

“One of the features is we now have three divisions headed by three deputy administrators.

“The new division in this restructure is dedicated to working with development partners.

“The other feature of the organisational structure is that it’s a district and local level government area.

“There’ll be a skeleton staff at the provincial headquarters and most of the staff will be based in the three districts and at the local level government councils.”