Official praises Alotau for sending acquittals on time

By HELEN TARAWA
ALOTAU continues to maintain its status as model district in the Southern region with the timely completion of its acquittals, acting Secretary Department of Implementation and Rural Development Vaki Aihi says.
Aihi who received the K8.1 million acquittals for the district’s services improvement programme (DSIP) funds from the chief executive officer Lindsay Alesana said Alotau has been leading by example.
“The timing of submitting these acquittals in the first quarter of every year is vital and you have maintained that,” he said.
“Once these reports come in they would be appraised and analysed to show their performance of the district.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Alotau MP Charles Abel said the acquittals were for the 2018 DSIP and the K5mil Public Investment Programme used for the street-scaping and the mall.
He said acknowledged the hard work of his administration in Alotau. “We continue our priorities in Alotau, we trying to build the service delivery framework which starts from the ward and goes to the provincial level,” he said.
“We want to ensure that every ward has an aid post, elementary school, water supply, chain saw and in many coastal wards we give them a dinghy and also household programme.
“We have sports, churches and women empowerment programme.
“We are building all the infrastructure and economic interventions to support coffee, cocoa, copra and oil palm.”
Abel said one of the aims of this government was to get money done to provinces and districts and decentralise powers and improve service delivery.
“DSIP is an ongoing programme and we have to continue to improve it through accountability,” he said.
“DIRD and Auditor-General and Finance must be able to verify what’s happening on the ground.”