Misconception affecting B’ville

SENIOR Bougainville Referendum researcher Dr Thomas Webster says most government departments do not understand the Autonomous Bougainville Government system.
“They see ABG as another provincial government and so are skeptical to transfer functions to run their own administration and operation functions and to generate their own internal revenue,” he said.
Webster said such misunderstanding had affected ABG’s fiscal capacity to generate its own revenue.
He said the ABG budget was around K200 million a year.
“Of that, between K19 million and K21 million in taxes is raised in Bougainville. But of that, K20 million in income tax is collected by the Internal Revenue Commission in Port Moresby and only K1 million is then transferred to Buka.”
Webster said the Government did not transfer the restoration grant as stipulated in the Bougainville peace agreement to provide roads, electricity, schools and health facilities.
“There was also weakness in the oversight mechanism put in place by the peace agreement.
“The Joint Supervisory Body is not meeting regularly. Some times its takes two years to discuss things that matter.
“In fact the independent review according to the agreement has to be done every five years after the formation of the ABG in 2005.
“And the first one was in 2018 when it should have been done in 2015.”