Zara Kanu | The National
BILLIONS of Kina sent directly to the country’s 96 districts cannot be traced, says a report.
The 2026 DDA watch report by advocacy group, ACT Now, says transparency has hit a terminal low on the use of the district services improvement programme (DSIP) funding by each district.
Each district development authority has a board which is headed by the Member of Parliament of the district who approves the distribution of all DSIP funds.
The 2026 DDA Watch states that despite the annual allocation of K20 million per district, representing a staggering K2 billion in public wealth managed at the local level this year, the national average transparency score stalled at a dismal 18 out of 100.
It says that this is not merely a failure of administration, but a systematic blackout as incumbent MPs prepare to ask for another mandate next year while most districts are operating in total secrecy, effectively marginalising millions of citizens by withholding the most basic evidence of how their money has been spent.
ACT Now advocate Eddie Tanago Paine said the absence of public audits created a high-risk environment where public funds were essentially unmonitored.
“This ‘black-hole’ is a direct result of the lack of capacity of the state’s primary oversight bodies which are the Department of Implementation and Rural Development (Dird) and the Auditor-General’s Office,” he said.
The report highlights that between 2017 and last year, the AGO conducted only six audits of the Services Improvement Programme (SIP) funds across nearly 500 eligible institutions.
Dird has done no better – failing to produce a single project inspection report.
In a previous monitoring cycle, the Dird team reportedly visited only three provinces and 16 districts.
“This is a negligible effort that highlights a total lack of widespread oversight,” Paine said.
“This institutional failure that while K20 million flows into each district annually, there is no verified proof that the promised health centres, schools or roads really exist.”
The report states that in any functional democracy, access to information is the non-negotiable prerequisite for accountability and without public plans, budgets and acquittals, ‘social auditing’ is impossible. The public is left to guess whether its resources are being investigated or stolen.
It goes on to say that despite being 80 per cent of the way through the 2022-2027 planning and implementation cycle, the disconnect between statutory requirements and reality is absolute.
The report summarises a near total collapse of open governance.
Only 37 five-year development plans from 2022-2027 exist, but only 12 have been made public. Of these only one annual budget is available, one financial acquittals report is available publicly, and nil financial audits from AGO and Dird project inspection reports.
Dird acting secretary (operations) Gordon Wafimbi named funding as an ongoing issue that has caused minimum inspection on projects from government-allocated grants.