Border Development Authority
The Border Development Authority (BDA) Act was passed by the National Parliament in 2008. It was created by the Somare government to coordinate development activities in all border provinces and primarily focused on Sandaun, Western, Manus, New Ireland, Milne Bay and the autonomous region of Bougainville (AROB).
Treasury Minister Patrick Pruaitch announced in October 2009 that there is K2.2 billion funding for the development of six border provinces over a 10-year period. Sandaun, Western, Manus, New Ireland, Milne Bay and the AROB were to benefit from that budgetary support, which was factored into the authority’s corporate plan 2009-2012 and 10-year development plan (Nicholas, The National, 2009).
However in July 2010 former minister and Vanimo-Green MP Belden Namah alleged in the National Parliament that the BDA purchased six vessels at inflated prices, paying K2 million for each boat when the actual price was K600,000 (Nicholas, The National, 2010).
Other allegations include a company contracted to set up a satellite communication facility lacking the technical capacity and a contractor’s failure to implement a K15 million town plan for Aitape.
It is not known if the authority accessed and used portions of the K2.2 billion funding for the six provinces in the last seven years.
Again, just like the K55 million funding allocated to the NID project in 2014, there appears to be no publicly-available documents showing how the funding was used and if it was used for its intended purposes.
