Finance approves Madang’s K109mil budget

Source: 

The National, Monday 26th March 2012

THE Madang provincial budget of K109,183,599 was approved last Friday by Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Peter O’Neill.
The bulk of the reve­nue collected in the province amounting to K16,808,000 was from goods and sales tax (GST) with K4.7 million, Ramu NiCo giving a K5 million advanced royal­ty,  fees and fines worth K2.2 million, business receipts of K7.1 million and miscellaneous K2.7 million.
Ramu NiCo for the first time advanced K5 million royalty payment to the Madang provincial government.
Madang deputy director for finance Thomas Neruse said the traditional sources of income for the province remained stagnant with no big improvement in these areas.
He said there was a reduction of K800,000 for GST compared with last year’s K5.5 million.
Total national government grants worth K87.7 million were made up of functional grants, health, education, village court, transport and primary production (agriculture fisheries and forestry).
Under the province’s development budget, the district support grant which is the non-discretionary component of K250,000 was for six districts plus the provincial member.
The budget is made up
of personnel emoluments
and grants with teachers’
salaries K36,743.50, staff grants K18,023.70, leave fares for teachers K900,000 and public servants salaries K1.2 million.
Transport got a bigger slice of K7 million, health at K5 million and education at K4 million.
Under the goods and services grant there is a local level government grant of K3.3 million.
The medical store or dispensary was allocated K2 million under the provincial improvement plan for this year.
A roll-over of K5.3 million in the budget showed K3 million for the national agriculture development project.
Neruse said the budget was no different from last year.
 as the public investment programmes remained stagnant.
Neruse said  the team which comprised Governor James Gau, five provincial executive council members, provincial administrator Ben Lange and his deputy Paul Adam and two budget officers were happy that the process of vetting and approval had been completed.
They were looking forward to the implementation stage.