There are many people commenting online on the impacts of
decisions taken by the current Papua New Guinea government. Many express their
feelings about a looming fiscal crisis, these range from fury to indifference.
In the haste for change once again it is easy to assume that a new crop of
freshly elected leaders in a newly constituted PNG parliament after 2017 will
miraculously create the change PNG needs!
We must not forget that the same
laws will apply in the same national parliament and provincial houses of
assembly. In the same national and district courtrooms, case law will grow and
precedents will continue to be set in the absence of the hard questions that
may never get asked about the blatant breaches in our society and adopted
system of government.
Our broken service delivery system
and our overheated economy will need more than elected candidates with tunnel
vision.
From 2017 our leaders will (more
than ever before) need the knowledge, political will, grace and patience to
restore integrity, democracy and the rule of law as a national emergency in
order for all else to be rebuilt without exception. The truth is a new
government in 2017 will inherit inter-generational debt, a massive deficit and
redundant parliamentary rules/standing orders governing important decision-making
processes. Not to mention the crumbling sanctity of the National Executive
Council (NEC) or cabinet.
They will realise that legislation
set up in principle to provide robust governance mechanisms have been
misunderstood or ignored by their predecessors. In 2017 a newly elected
parliament will discover an exhausted public service, a manipulated police
force, an angry defence force, and many broken Papua New Guineans with drought
and income starved families and disrupted livelihoods.
Those elected Members of Parliament
will find very drained state-owned enterprises, institutions and agencies
incapable of operating with only a steady trickle of public funds to deliver
wages, health & education or district support according to policies and
promises of the past and present. They will find that the much promised
revenues from oil and gas have been committed to paying off the current
government’s unilateral decisions and therefore debt for unauthorised loans for
generations.
New leaders in 2017 will need to
navigate a global economic downturn of epic proportions with PNGs development
and economic interests at heart. Our new leaders will discover that our broken
service delivery system and our overheated economy will need more than elected
candidates with tunnel vision.
Those elected will need to be
legislators, not aspiring millionaires or public finance managers. Newly
elected leaders will require an understanding of serious fiscal discipline, tax
and industrial relations reform and economic modelling that reflect PNG’s
economic conditions and our revenue-earning potential in sectors other than
petroleum and energy.
PNG will need MPs who are humble yet
extraordinary thinkers to guide monetary/fiscal, social, cultural and
development policy simultaneously to aid a new-look holistic reconstruction
strategy focused on understanding that our vast natural resources should never
again be left to a single individual who knows no institutional, spiritual,
executive or national boundaries. Those new MPs should be held to the universal
promise that candidates seek election (and re-election) to be servants to their
people not master manipulators of their resources.
All the hopes in online commentary
revert to a single assumption that PNG will inevitably have free and fair
elections next year. If all we do is dare to dream it’s no longer enough
because we will inevitably get what we vote for yet again.
Photo: Sepik Wewak Urban Local
Government facebook group
This article was written by
Dulciana Somare-Brash has Bachelor
Degrees in political science & international relations, and law from James
Cook University. Her experience in politics and development ranges from
employment with ABC/Radio Australia in Port Moresby, and later as Senior
Research Officer at the Australian High Commission there. Most recently
Dulciana has been PiPP's deputy executive director and director of operations
in PNG.
It first appeared in www.pacificpolicy.org
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