MPs must reveal source of funds

 Almost daily, there is a news story carried in our mass media of a politician dishing out money for this project or that or just as a cash handout in some part of our country.

Today, for example, we carry a story in our sports pages which has Moresby Northeast MP Labi Amaiu last Friday donating K50,000 to the Port Moresby Rugby League (POMRFL and the Port Moresby Women’s Rugby League (POMWRFL) for the 2013 season.

He has promised a further K20,000 for softball and soccer competitions in the electorate.

This is a wonderful gesture. Sporting activities gives valuable recreation to people who would other­wise be loafing and possibly turning their time to unproductive and negative activities.

But where is the money coming from? 

That is a question the good member must not shy away from answering as must all MPs from the prime minister down.

Not a day passes when one politician after another donates tens of thousands of kina and even millions to projects in their electorates right across the country.

However, the public is not told where the money is drawn from.

Is the money drawn from the district services improvement programme (DSIP)? 

Is it drawn from the transport fund, the agriculture fund, a trust account, from the 2013 budget, from some donor source … where?

It is important for transparency and accountability purposes that MPs reveal the source of their funds.

Money appropriated under the budget are all accounted for. 

That is, all the money is allocated for a certain programme or project. 

The Public Finances Ma­nagement Act prohibits transfer of funds from one vote to another except under very special circumstances and then only approved by the top management.

Even then, money allocated under the DSIP or the previous national agriculture development programme (NADP) fund and the RESI programme are to be distributed following very strict guidelines.

Funds are not to be distributed at the discretion of an MP or minister.

Today the Task Force Sweep team is being urged to urgently investigate the use and probable abuse of some K200 million parked annually under the NADP. 

There were many allegations that a lot of money has been paid out fraudulently to “paper far­mers”.

Just who are the paper farmers?

We have not heard of any submissions by any far­mers, paper or otherwise, applying for funds from these funds.

We seem to remember distinctly that all the cheques under this programme were collected by MPs.

We have no recollection or records of any MP who has come forward to tell us how those funds have been expanded.

The same can be said for the educational infrastructure development fund under the RESI programme.

Again cheques under this programme were collected in sizeable sums by MPs.

They being public funds, it behoves all MPs to reveal the sources of the sizeable amounts they are dishing out to all and sundry these days.

Otherwise, it would look as if the money is coming from the private coffers of the MP responsible.

Today, the Papua New Guinean politician must enter the Guinness Book of Records as the only elected representative who has more money at his discretion to distribute than perhaps any other politician on the planet.

Since it is public money, it is fair that everybody gets told where the source of their funds is. 

That will tell all whether they have been drawn down following the guidelines or not.