Ngangan defends fund allocations

FINANCE Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan says the disbursement of the service improvement programme (SIP) funds to districts and provinces has been done in full compliance with the law.
He was responding to a statement by Aihi Vaki, the Department of Implementation and Rural Development (DIRD) Secretary, that the Finance Department had breached a Cabinet decision in 2018 that the DRID would be in charge of the SIP management and budgeting.
Ngangan said the Cabinet decision (240/2018) was changed in 2020 to decentralise powers of the Government.
“This policy initiative was effectively changed in 2020, when the NEC revised this approach by reallocating PSIP and DSIP budgets from the DIRD directly to the provinces in the national budget, which was approved by Parliament,” he said.
“This was in line with the Government’s policy and ongoing implementation to decentralise the management of funds to provinces and districts, nearer to the service delivery points, where the majority of the population live,” he added.
Ngangan said the transfer of budgets to the provinces and the remittance of funds by the Finance department did not stop the DIRD’s ability to monitor PSIP/DSIP budget appropriations and remittances of funds to the provinces and districts.
“This information is available in the Government’s finance system, the Integrated Financial Monetary System, which is accessible to the DIRD, as an important first step in expenditure monitoring,” he said.