MPs must not head new authority

 THE Government’s plan to replace the Joint District Planning and Budget Priorities Committee (JDP&BPC) with a district development authority is another initiative to enhance service delivery at the district level. 

If all goes as Chief Secretary Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc anticipates, the new body will come into force next year. Parliament has passed an amendment to the Organic Law and Provincial and Local Level Governments to replace the committee with the authority.

Sir Manusupe has given an assurance he will continue to consult widely with district and provincial administrations to fine-tune the proposal. He, himself a former provincial administrator, knows the wealth of local knowledge the district administrators especially have of the development needs of their districts. They are in a sense the best authority on their districts and not parliamentarians unless they had served in similar roles before being elected.

It is important that district administrators are consulted and made to be key personnel in the proposed district development authority.

The district administra­tor’s role should not be me­rely as executive officer to the parliamentarian as is ap­parent today. Under the JDP&BPC arrangements, the open MP, as chairman, has a controlling voice in discussions and budget allocations for development of districts. There is every possibility that in some cases the JDP&BPC allocation of resources would be aimed at rewarding political loyalty and not necessarily according to prioritised development needs.

Resources might be channelled to projects or activities that have limited impact rather than in areas where greater benefit would have been achieved with the use of the same level of resource allocation. In some cases regular changes of district administrators or appointments at the behest of politicians rather than in strict compliance with public services rules and on merit impede progress in the district.

The district development authority could work especially well in provinces where there already exists a system of ward and district planning committees.

These committees will have their own list of identified development priorities and target areas to achieve over a given period. 

Some provinces have yet to have them established and empowered through the provision of resources while in a few there may be ward development committees.

In Eastern Highlands, for instance, the provincial government recently allocated K10,000 to the 264 ward development committees in the eight districts to properly set up and establish community centres that can be used for meetings and for training and awareness. These committees are a vital link and source of information for the future district development authorities when it comes to decision making and resource allocation. 

The JDP&BPC concept may have worked in some instances but has been misunderstood and misused in some cases. It may have lived its usefulness and re­levance and so needs rep­lacing. There are obvious failures, which the public service machinery itself, is all too familiar with or could even be held accountable for. 

For one, the JDP&BPC has in effect made the MP more of a project officer than a law maker as Parliament Speaker Theodore Zurenuoc recently pointed out. 

Consultation is ongoing for the drafting of the act and we do not yet know details such as the composition of the proposed district development authority and how much it would differ from the JDP&BPC. We can only hope that under the new arrangement the MP would have lesser influence and control over the allocation of resource such as the District Services Improvement Programme (DSIP) funds by MPs merely for political expedience.

The development needs of the district are best determined by the communities themselves and communicated to the district administration via their respective ward development committees. There already exists a structure of committees from the ward to council to district, each with their own set of development plans.   Adhering to and implementing these plans could possibly result in districts making real progress and meeting the needs of the masses. 

The district authority should underpin the role of the public servant, in this instance the district administrator, as overseer of the implementing agency.  The MP, as the law maker, should not overstep or assume that role.