Committed MPs will have Resi funds, says Marape

MEMBERS of Parliament who show initiative and commitment will be given priority in the K70 million rehabilitation of education sector infrastructure funding, Education Minister James Marape told parliament yesterday, The National reports.

Marape said the K70 million "funding allocated by the government in this year's budget is too thin to spread over all schools throughout the country".

He said submissions made by individual schools exceeded K70 million.

"The submissions are in the vicinity of K10 million a school and if we give that amount only seven schools will benefit because what we have in hand is quite small," he said.

Marape said the best way forward "is that the Education Department has to come up with criteria for major impact on the K70 million which for this year will be targeting high schools".

"To ensure we achieve maximum benefit, we have set criteria for the Education Department to use in disbursing funds."

He said members of parliament who showed initiative in using their district service improvement programme funds to fund education programmes "will have a good chance of getting Resi funds".

"These are members of parliament who are willing to spend the DSIP funds, those who show interest and partnership with their counterpart funding will be given priority."

He said the other criteria would be for districts that missed out on Resi funding in last year's budget to be considered.

 "The money is small and we will now be targeting high schools instead of spreading the money too thinly."

Marape was responding to questions without notice from Moresby Northeast MP Andrew Mald, who claimed he had used his DSIP funds totalling K3.5 million to build 20 teacher's houses in schools in his electorate.

Mald said with Resi funding assistance, he expected to build 50 teachers houses in his five-year term as MP.