The East New Britain Provincial Government has presented its provincial budget to Treasury for approval and certification.
Governor Nakikus Konga presented the K256 million budget to Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Charles Abel, yesterday in Port Moresby.
From the amount, the provincial government sum stands at K233,344,456 while the local level government’s budget stands at K22,820,800.
The ENB budget is framed against the Provincial Budget Framework Theme ‘Nurturing Sustainable Economic Growth and Development through Infrastructure and SME Development’.
Governor Konga said the budget, which was passed on December 20th 2017, is structured to support direct resource allocation to the districts and local level governments and frontline agencies to drive service delivery.
He said the budget builds on the common budget priorities aligned to the nine strategic result areas (SAR) consistent with the province’s development aspirations.
They include governance and management, primary health care, economic development, education, social development, land mobilisation, HIV/AIDS, response and disaster risk reduction and management.
The ENB Provincial Government has highlighted the likely challenges to the budget which include the unfavourable national economic situation, the political climate to be conducive and management of the APEC Meeting.
The timely access and availability of funds and capacity gaps will dictate the rate of implementation of the 2018 Budget.
Gazelle MP and Police Minister Jelta Wong, including Kokopo MP Emil Tammur, were present at the event.