Wau Waria MP Marsh Narewec is preparing drought relief for affected communities in his constituency despite banking delays in accessing K2.5 million in El Niño relief funds.
His DDA has established an oversight committee and needs-based response plan before the money becomes available.
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“To our people doing it tough in this dry spell, we hear you and we are working hard to get help to those who need it most,” Mr. Narewec said.
As chairman of the Wau Waria District Development Authority (DDA), Mr. Narewec has directed his chief executive officer, Mr. John Orebut, to establish a dedicated District El Niño Response Committee to ensure relief assistance is delivered promptly, fairly and transparently once the funds are released.
The delay follows the introduction of a new financial process under which the K2.5 million El Niño relief allocations for districts are channeled through the National Banking Corporation (NBC), requiring district finance officers to understand and comply with the bank’s procedures before accessing the funds.
“Like other districts in Morobe Province, Wau Waria is working through these new requirements, with a workshop scheduled for this week to guide our finance officers through the necessary banking procedures, financial processes and requirements to help speed up the process of accessing the funds,” Mr. Narewec said in a statement today.
Meanwhile, the district administration has continued preparations for the drought response.
From October 13 to 15, the District Management Team (DMT), led by Mr. Orebut, convened meetings to review drought damage reports, identify priority needs and develop a proposed response work plan and budget.
The District El Niño Response Committee will serve as an oversight body comprising local-level government (LLG) managers, programme managers, government officers, business representatives, churches and community representatives.
The committee is intended to strengthen transparency and accountability by ensuring disaster relief decisions are subjected to broader consultation, scrutiny and endorsement rather than being left solely to the district administration.
It will be accountable to the DDA and the people of Wau Waria, overseeing how limited relief resources are prioritized and distributed.
“The Committee met again today, Tuesday, October 20, to finalize the plan, budget, and how help will be delivered,” Mr. Narewec said.
Following the committee’s endorsement, three teams are expected to be deployed on Wednesday, October 21, across the district’s three LLGs—Wau Urban, Wau Rural and Waria—to conduct awareness and collect firsthand information on the extent of drought-related hardships affecting communities.
Recognizing that the allocated funds may not meet every community’s needs, the DDA is avoiding a blanket approach to relief distribution.
Instead, the district will adopt a needs-based response, tailoring assistance to the actual level of hardship and the specific conditions experienced by affected communities.
To support this approach, the DDA will use KoboToolbox, a digital data collection platform, to systematically gather information on drought impacts across individual wards.
The collected data will help the committee assess the severity of drought conditions in affected areas, identify urgent needs and determine which interventions should be implemented immediately.
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The evidence-based approach is particularly important for Wau Waria, where communities are spread across difficult and often inaccessible terrain, making accurate information and effective resource allocation critical to disaster response efforts.
Once ward assessments are completed, the committee will review the findings and determine appropriate relief measures based on verified needs rather than assumptions.