The Rabaul District Administration in the East New Britain province presented their acquittals for the District Services Improvement Program (DSIP) and the District Support Grants (DSG) for the years 2022 and 2023 to the Department of Rural Implementation and Rural Development (DIRD) recently. Led by the Acting District Administrator Freddy Lemeki with the support of the District Acquittal team the presentation took place at the DIRD Office in Port Moresby. When presenting the documents, the Acting District Administrator in his remarks highlighted the importance of acquittals and said that by conducting acquittals they ensure transparency and accountability in the use of public funds. “This process helps evaluate the effectiveness and impact of government programs and projects and promotes good governance.” District Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Abel Sokon, when giving an overview of the acquittal presentation; pointed out that there were challenges faced regarding expenditures during 2022 and 2023. “In 2022 when the National General Election was conducted, Ombudsman Commission froze all the government accounts and we could not access our funds.” “We were only accessing one account which was the Covid Trust Account.” “The Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) was also offline making it difficult to fully expend on funds. “ Additionally, the Covid Trust Account was the custodian account for several other funding parked under it for accessibility during the Election period. In 2023 the district administration was faced with uncertain political circumstances which saw the member for Rabaul Open, Dr Allan Marat and former MP going to court, regarding the election petition. “Though there were several issues such as bulking of funds and IMFS being offline, we still managed to monitor and maintain the movement of funds and have managed to transfer funds back to their respective funding sources and had it acquitted for.” Meanwhile, also speaking during the presentation was DIRD Assistant Secretary for NGI Nick Manes who commended the Rabaul team and said that acquittal also serves as a monitoring tool. “These are public funds and by reviewing acquittal reports, we ensure that taxpayers’ money is being used responsibly and effectively.”