A Papua New Guinea centre for the training of NGO managers is welcoming an announcement by the Australian government of a reduction in the number of aid advisers to the country.
PNG receives over US$450 million a year in aid funding, almost half of which goes to nearly 500 technical advisers or contractors.
The Australian Foreign Minister's notified his PNG counterpart that that number will be cut by more than a third over the next two years.
A spokesperson for the Melanesian Centre for NGO leadership, Moale Vagi, says spending money on advisers has resulted in a lot of waste.
"I mean, I just looked through the paper and found that about 55,000 a month per adviser, that's a lot of money, in terms of PNG kina that's 100,000 going to one person a month. for us we can run this programme for 300-500,000 but 100,000 going to just one person a month, that's ridiculous."
Moale Vagi says he hopes the reduction in advisers will translate into effective use of Australian aid money.
