New Ireland gives out K2.6mil in grants to partners

THE New Ireland government released K2.6 million in grants to its development partners on Tuesday.
These included the three mainline churches and others that included education institutions,
the NBC, Fire Service and Australian Doctors International under its partnership programmes with them.
Provincial executive council members, the administrators, CEOs, directors and officials from the recipient institutions joined Governor Sir Julius Chan for the presentation at which the two mainline churches, the Catholic and United churches, received 50 per cent of government grants under the 2019 budget.
In addressing the gathering, Sir Julius said:
“It is important for you to take into account why we are doing this.
“You are autonomous, that is why we want to partner with you. You decide independently how you want to allocate the funding without fear or political prejudice.”
“My government wants all of you to work together, we know your capacity and capabilities.
“We want you to partner with us and bring services to our people.
“I want you to deliver and lift the standard of New Ireland. We want to hand over the baton to the next generation so they can be better than us.
“The fellow that comes after me must be better than me,”
At the presentation, Catholic Church received K700,000 and United Church was given K500,000.
Top-up funds are K300,000 to the Catholic and K250,000 to the United Church.