NSO is real culprit in NID project mess

 THE statement by the Minister for National Planning, Charles Abel, on the NID Project (“NSO Spoiled NID Project” – The National, October 30) needs further elaboration as well as questions to the Minister. 

In this report the Minister implied that audit has been done and …”discovered simple mistakes” where casuals were paid on eight-hour rates on top of K200 per day allowances.

Firstly, the minister has not informed the citizens of PNG in the last two weeks after the above said report was published what other “simple mistakes” were also established in the audit report. 

Whether he would table it for public consumption or take any action on the NSO management for “spoiling the NID Project” needs to be cleared?

Secondly, the “simple mistake” of K200 a day for almost 400 casuals engaged since January 2015 would be how much? (K200.00 X 400 casuals X 190 days (7 months) = K15.2 million.) Is this a small amount by a “simple mistake”? 

What about those unpaid bills to the service providers both in Southern Highlands and NCD? 

Only “10,000” ID Cards were produced and launched during the time of the Minister’s speech for such a huge amount of public money.

Thirdly, the only punishment to NSO is the removal of the NID Project from it to Civil Registry Office. This is in contradiction to NEC Decision 97/2013 which requests for NSO to roll it out while CRO maintains and manages the personal information collected.

The good minister needs to get to the bottom of the issue and rectify the mess at NSO once and for all by sidelining the National Statistician and investigate his management before all other important statistical activities such as the NSO Reform, demographic and health survey, GDP compilations, household income expenditure survey and other statistical activities are mismanaged again. 

The PNG NID Project is a very important initiative of the Government and cannot be left in the mess like that. 

Milukimyu, Via email