Program Background Information
The District Treasury Rollout Programme (DTROP) commenced in 2004 mandated by National Executive Council (NEC) Decision No: 232 of 2003. The intention of the NEC decision was for the establishment of District Treasury Offices (now known as district finance Office). In the 86 districts of Papua New Guinea excluding the three districts/electorates in National Capital District. The NEC Decision was imperative given the bottleneck in the flow of financial resources to Districts and LLG’s hence preluding to underdevelopment and absences of basic goods and services affecting the majority 85 per cent of the rural PNG population. Also, NEC Decision No. 232/2003 was based on the legal requirements of Section (112) of the OLP & LLG 1995.
In the initial years, funding for this program was budgeted under the Department of Finance 026 operational budget. However, from 2014 onwards (except 2016 no funding provided), funds were parked under the development budget component or Public Investment program (PIP. With this resource envelope, Department of Finance as the lead agency has so far rolled out the program to most of the districts in PNG including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
To date about 80 percent (69 out of 86 district finance office) have been completed and commissioned and still need considerable level of funding to fully rollout the remaining 17 districts.
This is an impact program to be undertaken by any central government agency since independence and demands aggressive government support through budgetary allocation under the development budget component to:
- Complete the remaining districts yet to be rolled out
- Revisit the districts that have been initially piloted and
- Complete the remaining districts under working in progress are protracted due to budget cuts and cash flow situation.