The Minister for Community Development, Youth and Religion Soroi Eoe has responded to reports in the media regarding church grants.
He says the information shared during the launching of the Churches Database System and Application was misinterpreted and incorrectly reported.
He clarified that church grants for 2019 is K10 million and not K155 million as reported.
Eoe emphasized that the K155 million was the total of government grants from 2009 to 2014 when the PNG Church State Partnership Program came into existence.
Since its inception, the Church State Partnership program was under the Department of National Planning and Monitoring until its transfer to the Department for Community Development and Religion in 2016.
Of the K10 million allocated for church grants, K6 million has been made available.
K2.5 million has gone towards administration use such as running workshops and meetings while the balance of K3.5 million was presented to the 7 mainline churches on Friday, October 26th.
The money given to the mainline churches will fund the type of service and programs they provide in communities as captured in the existing policy.
(Filepic of Minister Soroi Eoe)