Zurenuoc:Initiative making a difference

THE provincial performance improvement initiative (PPII), a brainchild of the government, has, over the years, made significant improvement in the management processes of provinces, Chief Secretary and secretary of the Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs (DPLGA) Manasupe Zurenuoc said.
Speaking recently in Kokopo, he said some of the noted improvements included constructive cooperation between governors and their provincial administrations, elected members and provincial and district administrations and cooperation between key agencies at national, provincial and district levels.
PPII is carried out by DPLGA in partnership with the Department of National Planning and Monitoring and AusAID.
He said since the implementation of the policy  three years ago, DPLGA had noticed that the provincial and district management teams were also meeting more regularly and that minutes were recorded, provincial administrations were linking budgets to plans and programmes and restructuring to address human resource issues and there was general information sharing.
Zurenuoc said the aim of this year’s workshop was for provinces to share and learn from each other’s experiences with the PPII which was reflected in the workshop theme of Wok bung wantaim to reflect partnerships in service delivery at the different levels of government.
He said since the establishment of PPII with only three selected provinces – Eastern Highlands, Central and East New Britain – it had now expanded to 17 provinces.
Zurenuoc announced that the Government had conducted an independent review of PPII which commenced in May and completed in June where a final report was made.
The review looked at the government structure, the policy alignment,  programme efficiency, coordination and performance measurement of of PPII.
Over the next few months, DPLGA along with AusAID would be examining this report.
He said the review exercise had been found to be interesting and had enlightened the government of success stories in the provinces.
He said all service delivery models were dependent on the support and acceptance by the  people who wanted to be empowered to participate in development.