Great come back

Central province bounces back in PCDF to get first place

 

 BY GEORGINA KEKEA

 CENTRAL Provincial Government has bounced back from being disqualified and denied funds in 2015/16 to take first position in this year’s assessment of Provincial Capacity Development Funds (PCDF).

In a statement released by the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS), Permanent Secretary (PS) Stanley Pirione congratulates the Central Islands Premier and his hard working administration officers in Central province for the job well done.

“I would also like to congratulate the eight provinces for meeting all the eight minimum conditions for access to the PCDF in 2018/19,” Pirione said.

For provincial governments to have access to PCDF, they must meet all the minimum criteria set out by MPGIS.

Provinces are, however, given a chance to appeal and be reassessed.

If a province does not qualify, it receives only 20 percent of its basic allocation to enable it to continue with its ongoing projects.

However to have access to anything the following year, it has to meet eight minimum conditions.

50 percent of the PCDF is allocated to provinces based on the minimum criteria whilst the second 50 percent is distributed based on scores secured in the performance assessment.

There are eight performance measures with 100 indicators and what the province gets in terms of resources is determined by a score.

“That table shows Central Province taking the lead followed by Isabel whilst Temotu came third,” the statement from MPGIS said.

Central province has a score of 59 out of a hundred, followed by Isabel at 52 and Temotu at 51. The lowest is Guadalcanal province with a score of 21 out of a hundred.

Two independent local consultants were hired from January to May 2018 to assess the PCDF report.

Assessment period covered December 2016 to November 2017.

MPGIS hopes to reinstate the fund to its previous level in 2019.

This year’s amount was lowered because of the cut in PCDF allocation, due to budgetary constraints.

Despite the introduction of new minimum conditions and performance measures, all nine provinces qualified by meeting the eight conditions to access their capital development funds for 2018/19.

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