GRAFT IS REAL

POLICE Commissioner Anthony Wagambie was emphatic yesterday that police investigations into three politicians – Paul Tiensten, Peter Wararu and Francis Potape – are not politically motivated.
He just wants them to step forward voluntarily for interviews on matters that are being investigated by the police.

Unfortunately, the fact that all three MPs concerned are all senior members of the previous government who are presently in the opposition does appear to reasonable people as if it were some politics behind this issue.
And this creates politics out of something that is one of the biggest threats to PNG – corruption.

The National is of the opinion that the pursuit down this track can only end up with a lot of mud being thrown around and, in the end, will not serve the prime minister’s intent to rid PNG of corruption.
We have said it before and we say it again: Except for the former opposition’s 20 MPs, every other member of the new government (about 50 in all) was part and parcel of the old Somare-Abal regime.

More than 15 ministers in this government were ministers in the old government.
If dirty linen of the old government is to be hung on the line for the entire world to see, some of that dirty linen will have to belong to people in this government as well.

Corruption did not just happen overnight and in the Somare-Abal regime alone. We cannot cast suspicion and aspersions on the other side and preclude this side. Corruption knows no boundaries. It exists there as well as here.

Public Enterprises Minister Sir Mekere Morauta, when prime minister, said “corruption is systemic and systematic”, that it was a “cancer that needs to be cauterised” from the body of PNG.
It has been around for a long time.

A couple of MPs here or there, or a couple of political cronies might make a public example and perhaps instil fear in those who might be tempted down corruption lane, but it will not, in the words of Sir Mekere, “cauterise” the cancer.
Strong legislation and stronger will to enforce the legislation will do it.
It will mean we cannot be selective in who the police or any special task force seeks to go after.

If we must go after corruption in the immediate past government then we must go after the full disbursement of the development budget since 2007 and the use of the Rehabilitation of Education Sector Infrastructure funds and the National Agriculture Development Fund and the Minor Transport Programme funds, the health funds, the District Services Improvement Fund, the Bautama Central Provincial headquarters and Konebada Petroleum Park funds, or the Sepik Highways and Bridges Trust Fund. If all of these were investigated thoroughly the list of those who are wanted for interviewing by police will be a lot longer and they would be most interesting indeed.

Sam Koim and company or Anthony Wagambie and company do not need to go any further than the volumes of reports by the auditor-general and the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee reports that, until now, have been gathering dust in every member of parliament’s offices.

There, their attention will be directed to the state of affairs in the Department of Lands and Physical Planning and the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the public curator’s office.
They will be pointed to the state of affairs in the Works Department and the Department of Petroleum and Energy and how funds in the Konebada Petroleum Park were “used”.

The Department of Planning and Monitoring and Department of Finance have been singled out as key departments that are plodding alone “dead and directionless” but not knowing when to fall down.
The public accounts of every single department and government agency has been found wanting, that corruption has set in. That is how deep corruption is embedded in PNG.

Its roots have gone down deep and have spread out widely. It does not need band aid fixes. The short time that this government has would be better utilised in setting down the legislative framework and getting the bureaucratic machinery up and running to be able to solve corruption in the long term.

It does not augur well when there is a sense of “witch hunt” in the air just now. In the final analysis there just isn’t time to find all or most of the persons involved, to prosecute them and at the same time set the systems and processes right.

The legislative, institutional and system changes done in the early 2000s ensured the last government enjoyed political stability and financial institutions such as the super funds operated at optimum profitability. That was because proper ground work was done and established.

This is the kind of proper ground work that is needed today to “cauterise” the corruption. To that end, we welcome the prime minister’s announcement to set up the much talked-about corruption watchdog.
We hasten to add that the fraud squad and police prosecution division of the Royal PNG Constabulary be beefed up with substantial manpower, including consultants and overseas experts, in various fields of fraud detection and investigations through to prosecution.

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