Markham district, in Morobe Province, has received over K60 million in district services improvement program funds from 2017-2022.
Deputy Prime Minister, John Rosso, gave out funding details in the recent opening of infrastructure at Mutzing Station.
“In 2017, Markham received K1.35 million while in 2018, the government gave K9.392 million,” said Rosso.
“In 2019, when PANGU Pati formed government – with our coalition partners – we brought the funding up to K13 million that was delivered to Markham district.
“That was the first year of PANGU Pati. On the second year, in 2020, we delivered K16.3 million again to the district. We significantly increased the funding from 2017, when Markham received only K1 million, to K9 million in 2018.
“In 2021, it was K19.982 million and 2022, K10 million was disbursed due to elections.
“But you will note the growth that PANGU Pati has decided that we must invest more money to support our rural districts, more money must go to support our DDAs, more money must go towards remote Papua New Guinea to assist and ensure that development must reach our people.
“Those are the facts.”
Prime Minister James Marape said in total, K60,155,998 was given to Markham.
“This money left Waigani, left Tutumang, and came to your district treasury in Markham,” said PM Marape.
“And not just Markham; all district treasuries in the country received the same funding. If I were to add all the districts that had received funding since 2019, we would see over K5.4 billion had gone to all the districts in the country.
“Don’t ask James Marape if a community health post is not working somewhere – or John Rosso. Ask your Member in the first instance.
“The first question you can ask is, has the Finance Minister sent any money from Waigani? And if he says we haven’t given any money then you ask us because we have the record.”