Promises but no deliverables
In parliament where the people’s political representatives meet to distribute the nation’s tremendous wealth; in parliament where there should be a decent physician available to attend to leaders in the event they too collapse from stress as can happen but there did not appear to be any around, and certainly, no medical facility of note; in parliament in front of experienced doctors from all over the country who had converged to give an account of the state of affairs in their hospitals and health facilities.
All the doctors could do nothing. Dr Theo died giving an emotional testimony on the dismal state of health care in Morobe, specifically, and the country generally.
As one letter writer states today: “Wari kilim em,” an apt Tok Pisin expression that says it all.
If this was the 1970s or the 1980s, or even the 1990s, there might be an excuse, money-wise, for the piteous state of the health sector. But, this is the 2000s. This is the period when PNG has been experiencing impressive economic growth for eight consecutive years. Into its coffers has poured billions of kina in excess of the budget between 2003 and 2009. Some K6 billion has been parked in various trust accounts but the last of it was spent by the end of 2009.
We have heard that much of it was to be used paying one-off infrastructure development or to retire PNG’s large accumulated foreign debt – in the region of K6 billion – or to pay off negotiated settlements for workers’ wages adjustment or outstanding money owed to the super funds.
That has been the promise. Of the delivery, we have seen little of since workers are still waiting for their salary adjustments and their employers’ outstanding contributions to POSF.
The nation has seen no less than K40 billion budgeted in the 2000s alone, more money than that the Australian government has given in support to PNG since Independence and, certainly, more money than in any decade since Independence.
Where the money has gone is anybody’s guess because major transport infrastructures remain unattended and deteriorating. One only need look at the state of the Highlands Highway, the Hiritano and Magi highways and the Buluminski Highway to name a few.
Plans which have been on the books for decades to connect East and West New Britain, to drive a highway from Madang through the two Sepik provinces to connect West Papua, to connect Central and Milne Bay, Enga and Southern Highlands and Southern Highlands and West Sepik and Southern Highlands and Gulf with a port in the Gulf remain pipe dreams.
Kerema MP Pitom Bombom was quite accurate when he described the proposed Malalaua-Kaintiba-Aseki Highway as the “missing link” and “dream road”.
It might remain the “missing link” for years to come.
Do not take our word for it. Listen to what Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has to say about this.
O’Neill has said more than once that PNG has nothing to show for all the money that has gone into the country’s coffers in the last few years.
Much more is about to flow into the country when the Ramu nickel mine starts exporting, when the first gas is harvested and sold in 2014 and when major new mines start operating in Wafi and Frieda River.
This is a hugely maritime nation with major river networks criss-crossing, yet our marine transportation system is non-existent both in terms of wharves and jetties and in terms of mode of transportation itself. Government-chartered air and sea transportation no longer operate to remote parts of the country.
Air transport infrastructures for remote areas, which are largely dependent on aeroplanes, are non-existent. And, when there is an air accident, government leaders join the people to decry the operators, threatening to shut them down. Sadly, air transportation will be the only means of travel available to many remote locations in the coast, in the highlands and the islands until cheaper sea and land infrastructure are made available, not before then - however dangerous air travel might be.
To our mind, this is not a case of there being not enough money to go around. This is a case of sheer management incompetence and one that must be placed right at the feet of government. To begin with, there is far too much money given to politicians to distribute. The various schemes, such as the National Agriculture Development Programme (NADP) where has been sunk K200 million annually or the RESI funds where another K300 million has been sunk annually or the District Services Improvement Programme (DSIP) where K1.2 billion is parked annually and the Provincial Services Improvement Programme where has been parked K20 million annually, are all distributed by members of parliament.
However well-intended the rationale behind these funds might be, politicians are not the people to do it.
Two simple reasons demonstrate why politicians should never be charged with money.
Firstly, they do not have the administrative and financial accountability and capacity in their electorates and, secondly, they have far too many demands from their supporters in the electorates for them to distribute money properly and to needed infrastructure. By and large, much of the money has been misspent in this manner.
We were only yesterday told at a conference by treasury officials that officers dealing with implementing the budget are running into stress problems because they are under tremendous political pressure to find money outside of the budget.
To correct this anomaly, PNG must find a way to ensure money does not go to politicians. They should only be given their K250,000 discretionary funds – and that amounts to a whopping K27.25 million any way.
All other monies should be budgeted for programmes through the normal public service structure. The public service itself has grown grotesquely fat on expenditure and scandalously thin on delivery. It, too, needs to be reformed and streamlined.
Further, the original idea of the DSIP must be implemented as a matter of urgency. Public Services Minister Bart Philemon would know, having designed the programme in his time as the finance and treasury minister.
That was to spend K50 million to re-establish the presence of public servants right down to every district in the country. He never planned for the money to go to politicians.
The plan, as we remember, was to transfer public servants right down to the district level. There was to be an education inspector, a team of agricultural and livestock officers with a manager, 10 policemen with a commander and a rural lock-up, a number of CS officers, a team of medical staff headed by a health extension officer or equivalent and a works and transport contingent.
They would be based in the sub-district or district headquarters and would report to a district manager for logistic purposes but report to their various departments for anything else. Each division was to make periodic trips out to all parts of the district to advise people.
It was for this purpose that the district treasury roll-out programme was initiated so the two programmes would complement each other.
The roll-out was done first to ensure the increased number of public servants at the district would have access to their pay at the station, that they had banking and postal services and instant telecommunications to the outside world.
The idea is still relevant and is still the best policy programme yet on bringing government back to the people.
Perhaps it is too much to hope for in election year but there lies the path to correcting our serious implementation problem and the waste of resources.
Frank Senge Kolma
This article was first published on The National
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