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.

“This should be mandatory and part of the process of acquitting to the government on allocated district (DIRD) and provincial services improvement programme (PSIP) funding made available to each administration,” he said.

Vaki said DIRD’s mandate is compliance monitoring and reporting on SIP implementation while the Ombudsman Commission’s mandated function as a constitutional office is to enforce compliance through the leadership code.

“DIRD are still calling on the provinces and districts to furnish their outstanding SIP implementation reports – due in March.”

According to record, 27 districts and provinces are yet to submit their acquittals.

Outstanding reports in another listing show 87 outstanding reports dating back to 2018.

To address the outstanding reports, DIRD has moved at least 10 districts and provinces into the Bilum Digital platform as this is the now recognised national monitoring tool.

Vaki said this would now monitor funds used for PSIP, DSIP, LLG SIP, web service SIP, including the public investment programme (PIP) managed by National Planning and Monitoring.

“Reporting through Bilum is a mandatory requirement and DIRD.”