When aid is just a waste of money
SUSAN MERRELL
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is embedded in the Australian psyche as the arena where many died fighting for their country during the Second World War. Notions of Australian nationhood were born in the PNG jungles at places like Kokoda.
More recently, PNG, while recognised as a country of huge mineral wealth is also one that is experiencing significant social and economic problems where corruption is rife. Transparency International rates PNG as 154th out of 180 countries on a corruption scale (180th being most corrupt).
PNG has also been identified as part of the Asian/Pacific 'Arc of Instability' surrounding Australia, as such it's in Australia's best interests to prop up this young and fragile nation. To this end, since PNG independence, Australia has been providing the country with ever-increasing aid funding which is tipped to rise to $457 million next year.
Nevertheless, PNG's problems just seem to worsen, begging the question of the aid's efficacy. A recent independent review carried out jointly by Australian and PNG experts stated categorically that for the future of PNG's aid spending "The status quo is not an option."
In particular, the report found that fully half of the aid budget was taken up with paying for 'technical assistance' from Australia. Like the $500,000 annual tax-free salary for former Clerk of Courts from Melbourne, John Dinsdale, to act as a consultant PNG Law and Justice advisor.
So while the budget may sound enormous, it's deceptive - a large proportion returns to Australia. It's called boomerang aid.
What's more, the proportion of aid that was allocated to 'governance' increased from 20% of the budget ten years ago to 36% in the year 2009/2010.
Yet, neither the expensive advisors, nor the estimated cost of $10 million to produce the recently tabled PNG government-initiated 'Finance Inquiry' appears to have gotten to the truth of corruption or its perpetrators.
While this Inquiry claims to have uncovered that government coffers have been raided to the tune of $300 million in a series of sham compensation claims, it has alternatively been suggested that the Inquiry was really initiated for an ulterior political purpose.
Members of PNGs legal fraternity have mooted that the Inquiry was an attempt to discredit the then Finance Minister Bart Philemon who had defected from the Somare government only to lead a push against the Prime Minister.
If indeed the Inquiry's mark was Bart Philemon, it missed it.
This left the Somare government with the task of justifying the expensive enquiry. The focus turned onto the PNG judiciary with many of the country's lawyers and their clients bearing the brunt. The Member of Parliament for a Port Moresby constituency who had a land compensation claim heard by the PNG courts in the early 2000s was one who fitted the bill - as did the lawyer who acted on his behalf.
PNG's judicial system is adversarial - you lay down and die, you lose - so the State duly engaged its own lawyers to defend the claim.
But they didn't. The State's lawyers made winning for the claimant a 'lay-down misère' when they failed to file a defence within the prescribed time allowed by the Rules of the Court.
It's curious to contemplate why the State's lawyers, derelict in their duty, have not been cited by the Finance Inquiry while the claimant and his lawyer have. The State's lawyers need to explain. Why hasn't anyone ask them to?
And the plot thickens.
A hotel group coveted the land that was the subject of the Port Moresby MP's claim. The lawyers representing this group were the very same lawyers that failed to file a defence on behalf of the State during the MPs litigation.
Furthermore, prior to his appointment as one of the three heads of the Finance inquiry, former Justice Maurice Sheehan was also a consultant to the same lawyers representing the State and the hotel group. And so possible motives emerge.
It was a series of incestuous relationships where even the Managing Director of the hotel group was on the State Physical Planning Board.
Still there's more.
Justice Cathy Davani in her judicial capacity sat in judgment on the MPs compensation claim and was also one of the three heads of the Finance Inquiry. She sat in judgment on herself and found against herself.
It was just like recently when the Chief Ombudsman Chronox Manek found that Julian Moti had been unlawfully arrested in PNG in 2006. A shame he didn't know that at the time - he was the public prosecutor. He'd found against himself too.
It's hardly surprising that when anti-corruption measures in PNG have alternative agendas, with people sitting in judgment on themselves and where advocates have conflicts of interest that see them playing two sides against the middle, corruption has a fertile breeding ground.
And so this recent Finance Inquiry is not part of the cure for PNG corruption but another malignant symptom.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is embedded in the Australian psyche as the arena where many died fighting for their country during the Second World War. Notions of Australian nationhood were born in the PNG jungles at places like Kokoda.
More recently, PNG, while recognised as a country of huge mineral wealth is also one that is experiencing significant social and economic problems where corruption is rife. Transparency International rates PNG as 154th out of 180 countries on a corruption scale (180th being most corrupt).
PNG has also been identified as part of the Asian/Pacific 'Arc of Instability' surrounding Australia, as such it's in Australia's best interests to prop up this young and fragile nation. To this end, since PNG independence, Australia has been providing the country with ever-increasing aid funding which is tipped to rise to $457 million next year.
Nevertheless, PNG's problems just seem to worsen, begging the question of the aid's efficacy. A recent independent review carried out jointly by Australian and PNG experts stated categorically that for the future of PNG's aid spending "The status quo is not an option."
In particular, the report found that fully half of the aid budget was taken up with paying for 'technical assistance' from Australia. Like the $500,000 annual tax-free salary for former Clerk of Courts from Melbourne, John Dinsdale, to act as a consultant PNG Law and Justice advisor.
So while the budget may sound enormous, it's deceptive - a large proportion returns to Australia. It's called boomerang aid.
What's more, the proportion of aid that was allocated to 'governance' increased from 20% of the budget ten years ago to 36% in the year 2009/2010.
Yet, neither the expensive advisors, nor the estimated cost of $10 million to produce the recently tabled PNG government-initiated 'Finance Inquiry' appears to have gotten to the truth of corruption or its perpetrators.
While this Inquiry claims to have uncovered that government coffers have been raided to the tune of $300 million in a series of sham compensation claims, it has alternatively been suggested that the Inquiry was really initiated for an ulterior political purpose.
Members of PNGs legal fraternity have mooted that the Inquiry was an attempt to discredit the then Finance Minister Bart Philemon who had defected from the Somare government only to lead a push against the Prime Minister.
If indeed the Inquiry's mark was Bart Philemon, it missed it.
This left the Somare government with the task of justifying the expensive enquiry. The focus turned onto the PNG judiciary with many of the country's lawyers and their clients bearing the brunt. The Member of Parliament for a Port Moresby constituency who had a land compensation claim heard by the PNG courts in the early 2000s was one who fitted the bill - as did the lawyer who acted on his behalf.
PNG's judicial system is adversarial - you lay down and die, you lose - so the State duly engaged its own lawyers to defend the claim.
But they didn't. The State's lawyers made winning for the claimant a 'lay-down misère' when they failed to file a defence within the prescribed time allowed by the Rules of the Court.
It's curious to contemplate why the State's lawyers, derelict in their duty, have not been cited by the Finance Inquiry while the claimant and his lawyer have. The State's lawyers need to explain. Why hasn't anyone ask them to?
And the plot thickens.
A hotel group coveted the land that was the subject of the Port Moresby MP's claim. The lawyers representing this group were the very same lawyers that failed to file a defence on behalf of the State during the MPs litigation.
Furthermore, prior to his appointment as one of the three heads of the Finance inquiry, former Justice Maurice Sheehan was also a consultant to the same lawyers representing the State and the hotel group. And so possible motives emerge.
It was a series of incestuous relationships where even the Managing Director of the hotel group was on the State Physical Planning Board.
Still there's more.
Justice Cathy Davani in her judicial capacity sat in judgment on the MPs compensation claim and was also one of the three heads of the Finance Inquiry. She sat in judgment on herself and found against herself.
It was just like recently when the Chief Ombudsman Chronox Manek found that Julian Moti had been unlawfully arrested in PNG in 2006. A shame he didn't know that at the time - he was the public prosecutor. He'd found against himself too.
It's hardly surprising that when anti-corruption measures in PNG have alternative agendas, with people sitting in judgment on themselves and where advocates have conflicts of interest that see them playing two sides against the middle, corruption has a fertile breeding ground.
And so this recent Finance Inquiry is not part of the cure for PNG corruption but another malignant symptom.
Comments
Post a Comment
Please free to leave comments.