Province passes over K163mil budget

THE Madang assembly passed a provincial budget of more than K163million on Tuesday in the absence of its district MPs.
Madang Governor and assembly chairman Peter Yama said the budget totalled K163,000,996 which was an increase of K1.29million from last year with focus on rural development.
Yama said the highlights of the budget included a K4million increased in personal emoluments, the reduction of goods and services tax (GST) reduced by K2.76million and increased funding for infrastructure (K1.2mil) and education (K1.2mil).
He said the province’s six districts continued to benefit from the annual K10million in district services improvement programme (DSIP) funds, but the amount was not included in the provincial budget due to the district development authority arrangement.
“This province is getting K60million annually from DSIP and K10million from PSIP (provincial services improvement programme), in my view, we can do more work if all our funds are in one basket,” Yama said.
“We can take back Madang if we agree on sharing limited resources and by working together and I believe that is the way forward.”
Yama said the internal revenue budget was K54,308,000. He said major initiatives in new revenue areas over looked in the past would be tested this year and included:

• BETEL nut tax to raise K4million;
• CHROMITE sales tax to raise K4.2million;
• KUMUL submarine cable tax to raise K2million;
• OUTSTANDING GST of K10.7million; and,
• SHARES in Mineral Resources Development Company worth K2million.

Yama said a boom gate would be built at Gusap at a cost of K1.3million to monitor the flow goods and services in and out of the province.
He said the Gusap boom gate operation would have a memorandum of understanding signed between the provincial government and Internal Revenue Commission and Customs on revenue collection and partnership arrangements.
He said Eftpos (electronic funds transfer at point of sale) machines would be used at the boom gate, chromite weighed and tax determined, betel nut bags taxed and Ramu Agri produce to be checked by Customs and IRC officers.