Cancellation of DSIP taking PNG backwards

By Wally Uk

Marape's move to cancelled DSIP would see PNG moving back-ways in its delivery of services across Papua New Guinea.

The District Support Improvement Programme was started in the early 1980's. It was known then as the Electoral Development Funds and was proposed by late Hagen MP Paul Pora.

Late Pora proposed to the Parliament that the Government delivery machinery wasn't working in his electorate. If they were funding any projects, it was funding the wrong projects with no real impact's in the electorate as decisions where done in Port Moresby by bureaucrats.

Pora proposed the Electorate Development Fund so that MP's who are based in electorate, who have real experience in their district could make informed decisions on better use of the funds.

The Electorate Development Funds (EDF) continued and in the early 2000 changed into District Support Improvement Programmes (DSIP).

The DSIP has been the source of majority of projects, programmes and even counter-part funding for World Bank and AusAID programmes in villages throughout the country.

The EDF/DSIP has been a vehicle of service, its main clog is the lack of monitoring and reporting from the Planning and Monitoring Department which seems to turn a blind eye once projects starts.

The closure of DSIP would signal and end to those projects being delivered to provinces and the PNG Government would be tasked to take on the remainder of existing programmes.

Marape Government is taking PNG back into the 1970's !