Tighter funding rules planned

NEW guidelines will be set to guide the management of Community Mine Continuation Agreement (CMCA) funding, says Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
He was responding to North Fly MP Donald James about the Western development trust fund for impacted and non-impacted communities of the Ok Tedi Mining project.
“I have received a final report of the audit report on those two funds, the non-CMCA trust account funds,” O’Neill said. “It’s quite alarming that claims of up to about K244 million had been sent by different contractors and individuals to this fund.
“While some of these contractors have done the job, a lot had failed to deliver many of those projects.
“It was timely that we put a stop to the misuse and abuse of those trust funds that were aimed at improving the standard of living for the people.
“I will refer the outcomes of that report to the relevant agencies of government to continue to address some of those shortcomings.”
O’Neill said he would put up a new guideline for the funds and allow them to be used by Western and relevant stakeholders who were going to have access to them.
He said the new guidelines would be set up this month and they will have stricter control mechanisms.
“I want to assure the good member that we will be opening up the accounts so we can attend to some of the real needs of our people in Western,” O’Neill said.