Provinces urged to submit grant reports

ALL provinces, districts and local level governments are urged to submit their service improvement programme fund acquittal reports to the department of implementation and rural development.
Deputy secretary Jackson Why said failure to do so would mean no more allocation of development grants.
Why said more than K17 million worth of provincial and district support grants were parked at the department awaiting the acquittals.
He said the failure by the provincial and district administrators to submit their reports had resulted in the forfeiture of millions of kina back to the State.
The district service improvement programme fund was introduced in 2007 by the Somare government.
Since then, the O’Neill government had expanded the grants.
The department said on average only 36 per cent of the provinces had acquitted the provincial service improvement programme received in 2013.
The objective of provincial, districts and local level government service improvement programme is to provide minimum service delivery standards.
This is done through the re-establishment of basic infrastructure and facilities under the sectors of infrastructure support services, health service improvement, education service support, law and justice services, economic sector support and administration.