The National | 18th September 2026
MINISTER for Rural Economic Development Joseph Lelang has expressed surprise and questioned why the The National thought it pertinent to give front page treatment yesterday to a report that claimed billions of kina that MPs have direct responsibility over have “virtually disappeared”.
The billions of kina have indeed “disappeared” because they came off the government’s accounting books.
The Office of the Auditor General and Minister Lelang’s own Department of Implementation and Rural Development have reported that they have little to no capacity to independently verify whether or not all district services
improvement programme (DSIP) funds are being spent as per guidelines or as per remittances reported by the individual districts to Dird.
The funds may indeed be spent as they are supposed to. Or they might be stolen outright.
The important fact, one that helped determine our editorial decision to give the issue prominence, is that all public funds must be accounted for.
That is the law. The Public Finances Management Act says so and the Auditor General’s Act says so.
The Prime Minister James Marape says so when recently took departments and agencies to task for not reporting promptly as they should.
He lambasted the Department of National Planning and all other departments and agencies to show where K52.7 billion in public investment programmr funds have gone between 2019 and 2026.
Accountability is at issue here, not theft.
All departments and agencies charged with roles to account for use of public funds have a fiduciary duty to do so.
They must exercise those responsibilities with prudence, skill and due diligence.
That is where Dird and the minister can clear the air.
Has Dird done qits own independent inspections on all DSIP allocations to districts and on other grants as it should?
We have it on good authority that the department has been unable to carry out some of this inspections because of lack of funding.
The Auditor General’s office has told this newspaper many times that it lacks the capacity to audit DSIP and PSIP funds.
That means many billions of kina allocated to the districts are outside the government’s official audit process.
So long as these billions of kina are outside the audit process, they have disappeared from PNG’s accounts books.
They remain “disappeared” until they can be brought back into the public accounts of PNG.
There is no need to provide any further evidence to prove the monies have been abused.
They are unaccounted for. That means they are missing.
And that is good enough information for every citizen to demand probity, accountability, and transparency in the use of their money.
To extent this logic a step further, is there not serious culpability on the part of government and of parliament to continue pumping serious money to a budgetary item knowing full well there has been nil accountability for its use? At K10m per district that comes to K960 million.
Add the Provincial Services Improvement Program at K5m per district (K480m) and that works out to K1.44 billion per budget towards the SIPs.
This year we learn the amount has doubled to K20 million per district so you do your maths.
What makes this matter of absolute national interest is that the DSIP come under the direct control of every open member of parliament who sits as chairman of his District Development Authority.
The PSIP, likewise, is controlled by the regional MP or in most instances the governors.
This matter is of grave importance and deserves the highest scrutiny.