People should know DDA’s responsibility

MANY district development authorities (DDAs) in the country fail to deliver vital services required under the Vision 2050 and the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs).
The reasons for failure are either through board members’ lack of understanding of their duties or just blatant disregard of the functions outlined in DDA Act 2014.
These failures continue to lower Papua New Guinea’s ranking by the international communities on development goals.
Instead, the country ranks high on corruption.
It would be in the best interest of the public to know some key sections of the DDA Act 2014 so that they could seek more transparency and accountability on the performance of their DDAs.
The authorities’ functions outlined in the Act are:

TO perform service delivery functions and carry out service delivery responsibilities; specified in the ministerial determination made under section 6;
TO develop, build, repair, improve and maintain roads and other infrastructure;
TO approve the disbursement of district support grants and other grants;
TO oversee, co-ordinate and make recommendations as to the overall district planning, including budget priorities, for consideration by the provincial government and the Government;
TO determine and control the budget allocation priorities for the local level governments in the district;
TO approve the local level government (LLG) budgets for presentation to the LLGs and to make recommendations concerning them;
TO draw up a rolling five-year development plan and annual estimates for the district;
TO conduct annual reviews of the rolling five-year development plan; and,Other functions prescribed by the regulation.
Part III – section 11 spells out the functions of DDA boards, which are:
TO ensure the proper, efficient and economical performance of the authority’s operations for the benefit of the people of the district;
TO give directions to the chief executive officer under section 22 (3) (a); and,
other functions conferred on the Board by or under this Act.From the above, it is clear many DDAs fail to carry out their functions by maintaining roads and other key infrastructures.

It appears the boards failed to deliver the best for the people.
It has become a case of “services for the benefit of the politicians and his/her team”.
The people of this country have suffered for so long and this should not go on anymore.
They should be educated enough to hold corrupt politicians and bureaucrats accountable.

Concerned Morobean,
Lae City