The National | 11th May, 2026

PEOPLE must demand accountability from their Members of Parliament (MPs) as districts and provinces have received “substantial funding” through their services improvement programme (SIP) funds, Prime Minister James Marape says.

Speaking at Bialla in Nakanai, West New Britain on Friday, Marape warned that citizens would increasingly demand accountability from MPs ahead of General Election 2027.

“By 2027, districts would have received between K70 million and K100 million,” he said.

“The people must see the work.

Editorial | The National | Wednesday 25th March, 2026

THE World Bank this week revealed two of the most significant flaws in PNG government financing arrangement in this country since Independence.

The first is an issue this newspaper has raised often in this space. This is the matter of the provincial and districts services improvement programme funds.

That second has to do with tax exemptions that the government seems to offer willy-nilly to all and sundry as incentives.

The National | February 3, 2026

THE Government has paid a whopping K1.162 billion last year to provinces and districts in service improvement funds that are under the control of Members of Parliament.

Finance Minister Thomas Opa said yesterday that no district and province had been left out in its Provincial (PSIP) and District Service Improvement Programme (DSIP) allocation of K10 million each.

He said the Finance Department payment records confirmed that it paid out K960 million to the 96 districts and K220 million to the 22 provinces.

By POSTCOURIER ONLINE |  NOVEMBER 25, 2025 at 1:51 am

Prime Minister James Marape has emphasized the Government’s commitment to strengthening provincial health systems, releasing detailed funding figures and directing that all future district-level health investments in Hela Province must be channeled directly through the Hela Provincial Health Authority (PHA).

Cathy Tukne

This week, the government  said to present the 2026 National Budget. Once again, the people of Papua New Guinea are bracing for promises of change.

The budget will include K20 million for each district through Service Improvement Programs known as DSIP and DIP. This money is meant for improving basic services like health, education, and roads in the community. 

REPORTING of public funds by district administrations and other government agencies should remain a priority, says Implementation and Rural Development (DIRD) acting secretary Aihi Vaki.

Vaki said provincial and district administrators should not submit implementation reports simply because DIRD and the Ombudsman Commission (OC) are asking for the acquittals.

POST-COURIER | NOVEMBER 11, 2025 at 4:06 am

THE country’s audit office has failed to audit over K5 billion in district, provincial, statutory, and departmental budgets since 2024 due to chronic underfunding and management challenges, including the head of the office reportedly being sick.

And the Ombudsman Commission has called for all Members of Parliament, including Governors, to acquit their 2024 PSIP and DSIP funds by March 31, 2025, to ensure transparency and accountability

The National | Editorial | 2nd October 2025

AS PNG begins its next set of 50 years, adjustments, reviews and structural changes must be made to those laws, policies, systems, processes and institutions that have been found wanting in the first half century of independence.

One of them must be the District Development Authority.

In the first instance it is a legal anomaly, an aberration of sorts. 

The National

MORE than K830 million in Government funds allocated to provinces and districts remain unaudited, according to the department of Implementation and Rural Development monthly report. 

It blames this on the lack of proper oversight and accountability on the Provincial Service Improvement Programme (PSIP) and the District Service Improvement Programme (DSIP) funding. 

Since 2018, 163 reports are yet to be provided for assessment. They include 74 DSIP and 19 PSIP reports yet to be submitted. 

By Jesher Tilto | The National | September 19 2025

TO date, Papua New Guinea has 22 provinces and 96 districts. 

There are upwards of 370 local level governments (LLG) and at least 6,900 wards, pending confirmation from the Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs (DPLLGA) or Electoral Commission. 

And after years of waiting, people will soon go to the polls to elect their leaders in this year’s LLG elections. 

Source: The National

THE Ombudsman Commission (OC) has directed all MPs to submit their outstanding service improvement programme acquittals in compliance with the Organic Law on the Duties and Responsibilities of Leadership.

The National | Editorial 

THERE was a conversation in the office of Dennis Young, then Speaker of the National Parliament in around 1991, that a fly on the wall has passed on to us.

In attendance were Young and Ialibu Pangia MP Roy Yaki and Wewak MP Bernard Narokobi.

The latter two had a proposal they wanted the Speaker’s blessing on.

The proposal was that Parliament ought to pass legislation to ensure that Memberss electoral development funds, going at the time at K250,000 per member, was entrenched in law.

The National | Editorial 

In three weeks, the country will celebrate its 50th Independence Anniversary. 

However, the hype for such a momentous occasion is not truly felt right throughout the country and not right now. 

Try ask the people of remote Biawaria in Morobe’s Wau-Waria who only recently saw the completion of their long-awaited airstrip after waiting 41 years. 

Post Courier Editorial

We all have to admit our failures and there are many but one that stands out is the manner we have exercised our freedoms at national elections in the last two decades.

In every one of these elections, we did not go to the polls to vote to change our electorates, our provinces and country but rather our own status. We voted candidates whom we believed would change our situation in our lives, to fix our own individual problems so look where we are now.

ACT NOW! PNG has released its second annual District Development Authority Watch Report, covering the period July 2024 to June 2025. 

The findings reveal entrenched failures in transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement across Papua New Guinea’s 96 District Development Authorities (DDAs). This is despite rising government investment of public funds through service improvement and infrastructure grants totaling almost K2 billion a year.