More accountability, more projects

The National Weekender

Story and pictures by HELEN TARAWA

THE provinces of Chimbu, East New Britain and Milne Bay are ranked among the top three provinces in terms of service delivery in the country, according to the National Economic and Fiscal (NEFC) Commission.
The commission assesses the provinces using the Reform to the Inter-governmental Funding Arrangement (Rigfa) process. Rigfa was introduced in 2009 and has enabled provinces to receive more funding for minimum priority areas (MPAs) and to properly report on it.
The MPAs are;

  • Health: The operation of rural health facilities, outreach health clinics and patrols, drug distribution,
  • Education: The provision of school materials, supervision by provincial and district officers, and the operation of district education officers,
  • Transport and infrastructure: The maintenance of roads,  bridges, airstrips, wharves and jetties
  • Primary production: Extension activities for agriculture, fisheries and forestry and the provision of operational materials for village courts.

Rigfa addresses funding that comes from the national government to the provinces and, eventually, to the districts.
The recent Southern regional workshop in Alotau revealed that provinces and districts are now becoming more accountable and transparent in the way they spend their functional grants and internal revenue.
National Economic and Fiscal Commissioner Dr Alphonse Gelu said that when Rigfa was rolled out it totally changed the system of financing from Waigani down to the provinces.
There are still some challenges, with provinces still not properly targeting those minimum priority areas, or MPAs, but because of the pressure that has been put on them by institutions like NEFC, many have improved in the area of accountability.
Said Dr Gelu: “It is a system which has gone through many changes. 1995 was the main change where the new Organic Law on provincial and local level government replaced the old Organic Law on provincial government.
“From there it set up this new structure where the provincial member automatically becomes the governor and the open members become members of the provincial executive council.”
The reform allowed the politicians at Waigani to become part of the provincial system through the District Services Improvement Programme (DSIP) and Provincial Services Improvement Programme (PSIP). That changed the original intention of transferring powers from the politicians in Waigani to the provinces, by bringing the MPs back into the mix and making them part of the decentralised system.
The reform enabled the politicians to both become lawmakers in parliament and also project implementers.
Gelu said that the politicians, in many instances, believe that public servants are not moving fast and so they are going down to the province and district levels to move things along.
“Let us not blame each other; politicians should not blame the public servants at the national, province and district levels, and the public servants shouldn’t blame the politicians for interference.
“Basically, it calls for collaboration between the politicians and public servants and once we iron out that boundary, things will work well for us. That’s one of the biggest challenge that is facing this relationship within our decentralised system of government.”
He said that even with the introduction of the District Development Authorities (DDA), the provinces continue to face challenges, like power and housing for public servants.
“There is nothing in the districts that will attract people to go and work there but we have created DDAs as the main vehicle for delivering services at district levels.
“DDA is a new entity. Give it another five to 10 years and things will start improving.”
The chief executive of NEFC, Hohora Suve, said that they have been assessing the provinces through Rigfa for nine years. One of the obstacles, he said, has been the poor cash flow from Waigani, and when that happens the provinces are usually asked to “dig deeper into their internal revenue, anything to supplement the functional grants. Some of them have been using the Services Improvement Programme grants to help fund their operational activities because there are not enough funds in the system.”
Suve said the recent direction from the Ombudsman Commission restricting payments and the release of funding during the election period has also created many problems for the provinces and districts.
“After the elections, things will be back to normal,” he said.
And how are the provinces rated in terms of service delivery?
“We use key performance indicators to monitor . . . their expenditure,” Suve said. “In our ranking we look at the timeliness of how those functional grants are spent – whether they are spending up front or towards the end.
“We make sure that they spend their own internal revenue for service delivery and we encourage them to do that and we rate them on that.
“If they are spending their money on personal emoluments or capital expenditures we score against that because they are supposed to use that for service delivery.”
Suve said that out of the 22 provinces, the latest ranking has Milne Bay at 3rd place, Central 5th, Gulf 10th, Northern 14th and Western 18th.
“We need to continue to get the message out to (the provincial administrations to) tell them how to use the funds and grants, and in what areas, and also to look at the new developments like the DDA.
“There’s been a big improvement. Western Province, which was once ranked last as well as Northern, have come a long way. They have embraced the message of service delivery and it’s attributed to the regional workshops where people are always keen to attend and learn from each other.