By JOE GURINA
THE East Sepik Provincial Government is set to procure projects after having in place its provincial procurement committee officially sworn in on Friday in Port Moresby.
This is a sigh of relief for Governor Allan Bird and his provincial government team that has been struggling to implement projects for the last two years.
He said with the absence of the provincial procurement committee, it had delayed procurement of projects and only little was achieved.
“I have been very strong in following rules and processes, and as a result, we’ve struggled to implement, because procurement became difficult. That is why we struggled for two years in implementing major projects in the province.
“Even though we procured somethings, I would say that the bulk of them are still to do. East Sepik has over K80 million sitting in its bank account but we could not procure. We had difficulty procuring things from our PSIP, because the PSIP has to go through this committee, the committee did not exist and we could not do anything,’’ Bird said.
He said there were projects that needed attention; however the provincial government had no way to procure.
Governor Bird said he is not sure how the DDAs procured their projects, “but at the provincial level we can’t, we have to wait for this committee,’’ he said.
‘’I have been calling a lot on the devolution of powers, let us do the work and come down and audit us, inspect us, check the books and see if we are doing it properly or not.
“We can’t wait for the national government to figure itself and the national agencies to out their issues, while our people are suffering. I’ve been a strong advocate in decentralizing functions, maybe not so much powers and in this year’s budget.”
Provincial Administrator Dr Clement Malau who was sworn in as the chairman of the provincial procurement committee also said it was really a big challenge to do procurement back in the province.
“In some instances we have also used the recently passed emergency act that allows aspect of us approving projects. So we used that with some of the areas like market development during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, which is in line with the emergency act.”
He said the administration is also looking at other aspects to implement their programs to support the political leaders with their visions and aspirations so that they are not seen to be slow.
