Hon. William Duma Responds to Allegations on DSIP Misuse By Lucas Kiap

Mr Kiap’s observations are in nearly all respects, correct .

But I respectfully disagree with the comment that “DSIP and PSIP have effectively become MPs personal pocket money,handed over with little to no oversight or accountability”.

It is in my view, sweeping and generalizing and for most MPs, unfair.

In my case,DSIP funds have never ever been my personal pocket money. I saw the colour of money before I became an MP, and even today, I do not need DSIP as my personal pocket money.

There are guide lines for the allocation and application of DSIP funds by the district development authority( Hagen City Authority in the case of Hagen)chaired by the Open MP for each electorate.

For Hagen ,we use the guidelines to allocate funding and the (BSP)checks all documentation before the funds are released to the recipients.

BSP has been put on notice by both the Dept of Finance and the Ombudsman Commission to ensure each DSIP payment request from

a DDA has met all the requirements before cheques are honoured.

Every year we lodge acquitals with the Dept of Implementation and Monitoring before the Dept of Finance releases the warrants for the next quarterly payments.

The DSIP funds of K10million are never released in a lump sum but usually every quarter when there are sufficient funds in Waigani.

So to be able to recieve the next lot of DSIP funds ,each District must lodge acquitals for the previous year and those acquittals must be accepted by the Dept of Implementation and Monitoring .

I am not aware of funds being disbursed directly to MPs who then unilaterally decide how and where to spend them.In the case of Hagen, no funds have for the last 23 years ,been disbursed directly to me and I have never decided unilaterally, where and how to spend them.