MORE ANSWERS THAN JUST GUNS

OP/ED

THE Port Moresby-based police inspector whose gun was used by a security guard to create panic on a business city thoroughfare has more than the gun to answer for.
He has to answer to his commissioner, the Department of Personnel Management and to the Ombudsman Commission on what he was doing running a security company while he remained a senior member of the disciplined forces and a senior government employee.
Stern rules bind the public servant to his employer, the state.
The Public Service (Management) Act, section 76, prohibits any engagement in outside employment or
business or in acquisition of land by any member of the national public service.
The public service General Orders supports this provision at GO no.20, which specifies the areas where civil servants cannot engage in outside businesses or employment and other miscellaneous conducts which are improper. Failure to observe these orders would most normally attract the full rigours of the public service disciplinary process.
Special conditions do apply, but permission has to be granted by the secretary of personnel management and, normally, this permission can be withdrawn at any time.
While the leadership code does not cover all public servants, those who occupy constitutional offices or are above a certain rank in the public service hierarchy, are covered by the code.
For those public servants who are covered by the leadership code, section 7 prohibits directorship in any company, section 8 prohibits shareholding in any company and section 9 prohibits employment by any other employer.
Special conditions also apply but they have to be discussed with and would have to be approved by the Ombudsman Commission or other competent authorities specified under the law.
This is a proviso that was once very strictly observed but is, today, widely abused and there would appear to be very little enforcement of the relevant laws and regulations cited above.
The police inspector, who was last week detained by his colleagues, is not alone in his adventurism.
There are civil servants, including departmental heads, who own and operate businesses in many parts of the country.
Isaac Lupari, as chief secretary, once denounced profiteering public servants who were bleeding their compatriot dry with numerous money loan schemes right under the noses of the public service.
These officers, many of whom continue to operate today, work in departments in some senior capacity or other and then arrange through pay deductions through the pay office for collection of their dues each fortnight.
We do not think the secretary for personnel management or the Ombudsman Commission (if the officers are covered by the leadership code) would ever give permission for these kinds of businesses to be conducted.
Others operate passenger motor vehicle services or trade stores or even in the building and construction and earthmoving services.
Why these public servants have never been prosecuted we shall never know.
Such is the extent to which the Public Service (Management) Act, the public service General Orders and the leadership code have been abused that bringing it back to any sort of equilibrium will take nothing short of an operation under emergency powers.
But, everything begins at the top. Ever since that fateful day on March 3, 1978, when Sir Michael Somare and Fr (now Mr) John Momis announced to a shocked parliament that the leadership code would be effected and all leaders with business dealings were asked to reveal their assets and accounts to the Ombudsman Commission, there has been a silent rebellion against the law.
That first announcement led to the walkout of parliament by businessmen-cum-politicians Sir Iambake Okuk (deceased) and Sir Julius Chan in the first motion of no-confidence.
Ever since, it has been a downhill trend where observance of the leadership code is concerned, to the extent that now the code is under threat and with the full concurrence of Sir Michael himself, who appears to have run afoul of the code somehow.