Corruption, Infrastructure woes and Development Challenges
By LUCAS KIAP
When it comes to infrastructure development and providing basic government services in the country - is where billions and billions of Kina of public funds are pumped into every year. Year-in-year-out, every government, when comes into office makes headlines across the country when announcing big budgets to tackle the infrastructure woes (and basic government services) in the country, raising the hope of the people because they want it badly.
Despite billions of kina have been spent every year on infrastructure alone to deliver basic government services to the people, people still complain about the lack of such vital services and how they struggle to survive without it. Sad tales of such struggles are reported everyday by the media.
It has been and it seems, the cries and struggles of the people desperately wanting basic government services will never stop as most of the existing infrastructures have deteriorated and run down due to decades of lack of funding, mismanagement and negligence, destroyed by natural forces or by men themselves. When calls are made to the government for intervention, such desperate calls are often fallen on deaf (or dead) ears.
After years of struggles and hardships, the people have accepted the verdict and coped very well over the years to live without it or say nothing at all. However, if lucky - having excess to infrastructures is a luxury where only the privileges get to enjoy it but only for temporarily as it falls apart again. But where did the billions of Kina allocated every year for infrastructures go?
This is a fundamental question that every Papua New Guinean should ask either the government or themselves. Whatever the reason is everyone else seems to accept the status quo and move on – its business as usual in PNG.
Can this means the government needs to increase funding for infrastructure development from the current billions of Kinas to trillions of Kinas?
The country does not need trillions of Kina to solve its infrastructure and development challenges but instead it is in fact facing a difficult future. You are only seconds away to know why.
In Papua New Guinea politics and business cannot be separated from each other. To be a politician is to be a businessman or vice versa. This misconception of politics as a means to wealth accumulation explains why businessmen, ordinary persons, civil servants, priests and pastors when voted into parliament disappear and reappear as business entrepreneurs. What happens in between?
The first thing that comes to a mind of a politician when he/she is first elected to parliament is to find ways and means to benefit from public funds for infrastructures development. They set up their own businesses with their family members or associates so that infrastructure projects contracts can be awarded to these companies.
To enable these companies to engage in government contracts, they (politicians) go to such extremes to manipulate and distort checks and balances so that contracts can be awarded to these companies, sometimes by bribing the persons responsible for executing and awarding government contracts. Sometimes it is the opposite - companies bidding for lucrative government contracts bribe politicians and bureaucrats or those responsible for the facilitation and awarding of these contracts.
These companies usually don’t have the capacity, experience and capability to construct high standard and high quality infrastructures. To make worse, they don’t have quality control and monitoring systems to monitor the integrity of infrastructures projects to ensure compliance with accepted standards and industry best practices during design, engineering, procurement and construction. As a result what they built often comes apart or deteriorates quickly into few years of operations.
To quarantine this, the government spends more money maintaining the same low quality and substandard infrastructures - the money which could have been used for developing other parts of the country.
To make even worse, the government does not monitor what infrastructure projects it funds around the country allowing public funds to be diverted elsewhere or simply disappeared without the actual projects being carried out.
Perhaps this explains how billions of Kinas on infrastructure development have been siphoned and squandered. The practice of using public office to misuse and abuse public funds is known as “corruption” and it is endemic in PNG.
It has infiltrated every government institutions and key establishments – spread its roots deep among politicians, bureaucrats and ordinary public servants who are responsible for managing public funds for development.
From this it can be concluded that, leadership in this country has been the single major factor in promoting and exhorting corruption in key government sectors or agencies responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring infrastructure development projects across the country. The lack of development in the country is the reflection and manifestation of the kind and type of leadership we have had in the country over the last 37 years of independence. In fact we have leadership “syndrome” in this country. In a nutshell, leaders simply lack vision and knowledge about the long-term development of the country resulting in them adopting temporarily or short-term measures to solve deep and complicated problems which need long-term solutions.
Can Papua New Guinea overcome corruption, infrastructure woes, and development challenges?
The country does not need trillions of Kina to solve the worsening infrastructure woes or to provide adequate basic services to its people.
Instead, what the country desperately needs is visionary, honest and transparent leadership who can be able to look into the future – clearly outline the development path to achieve certain development goals and targets. The country needs leadership who can put the interest of the country and people first before theirs to stop corruption.
Nations have become great for what they have created or achieved by men themselves but not what has been created by the nature before them. What the nature has created is for men to find their own purpose in them. It is not for men to boast about them or plunder them to their destruction and extinction.
The leadership in the country has failed to utilize the revenue collected from the boom in the natural resources to develop and progress the country.
Before the natural resources run dry, the political leaders need to set long-term visions and strategies and relate them into action and developmental plans to develop Papua New Guinea. The worse is yet to come if the country fails to deliver to its people what they need the most.
To stop public funds from being continuously siphoned and squandered, the government should pass legislations that will limit or remove the opportunities exist within the systems which expose public funds to be abused, misused and stolen. Such efforts should start from where the public funds are managed and distributed all the way to the districts or villages where the funds are used.
Monitoring of these funds is also very important. All government funds embarked for projects should show physical evidence of the existence of such projects by physical inspection or by photographs and GPS.
In addition, the government should pass legislations with strict penalties for those who abuse, misuse and steal public funds for their own gain. They should be prosecuted and put behind bars or hanged.
This is a key anti-corruption policy area for the current O’Neil-Dion Government to consider if this government is serious about stopping corruption because this is one of the main ways in which public funds are abused, missed or stolen.
To provide high quality and high standard infrastructure that can last long, the government should standardize and modernize the designs for all public infrastructures projects such as bridges, roads, buildings for classrooms, aid posts and clinics, etc.
All infrastructures should be built according to national standard designs according to a standardization development plan to develop and modernize Papua New Guinea.
Finally, all companies that engaged by the government for public infrastructure projects around the country should comply with stringent requirements. These companies should demonstrate their capacity, experience and capability to construct high standard and high quality infrastructures.
Despite billions of kina have been spent every year on infrastructure alone to deliver basic government services to the people, people still complain about the lack of such vital services and how they struggle to survive without it. Sad tales of such struggles are reported everyday by the media.
It has been and it seems, the cries and struggles of the people desperately wanting basic government services will never stop as most of the existing infrastructures have deteriorated and run down due to decades of lack of funding, mismanagement and negligence, destroyed by natural forces or by men themselves. When calls are made to the government for intervention, such desperate calls are often fallen on deaf (or dead) ears.
After years of struggles and hardships, the people have accepted the verdict and coped very well over the years to live without it or say nothing at all. However, if lucky - having excess to infrastructures is a luxury where only the privileges get to enjoy it but only for temporarily as it falls apart again. But where did the billions of Kina allocated every year for infrastructures go?
This is a fundamental question that every Papua New Guinean should ask either the government or themselves. Whatever the reason is everyone else seems to accept the status quo and move on – its business as usual in PNG.
Can this means the government needs to increase funding for infrastructure development from the current billions of Kinas to trillions of Kinas?
The country does not need trillions of Kina to solve its infrastructure and development challenges but instead it is in fact facing a difficult future. You are only seconds away to know why.
In Papua New Guinea politics and business cannot be separated from each other. To be a politician is to be a businessman or vice versa. This misconception of politics as a means to wealth accumulation explains why businessmen, ordinary persons, civil servants, priests and pastors when voted into parliament disappear and reappear as business entrepreneurs. What happens in between?
The first thing that comes to a mind of a politician when he/she is first elected to parliament is to find ways and means to benefit from public funds for infrastructures development. They set up their own businesses with their family members or associates so that infrastructure projects contracts can be awarded to these companies.
To enable these companies to engage in government contracts, they (politicians) go to such extremes to manipulate and distort checks and balances so that contracts can be awarded to these companies, sometimes by bribing the persons responsible for executing and awarding government contracts. Sometimes it is the opposite - companies bidding for lucrative government contracts bribe politicians and bureaucrats or those responsible for the facilitation and awarding of these contracts.
These companies usually don’t have the capacity, experience and capability to construct high standard and high quality infrastructures. To make worse, they don’t have quality control and monitoring systems to monitor the integrity of infrastructures projects to ensure compliance with accepted standards and industry best practices during design, engineering, procurement and construction. As a result what they built often comes apart or deteriorates quickly into few years of operations.
To quarantine this, the government spends more money maintaining the same low quality and substandard infrastructures - the money which could have been used for developing other parts of the country.
To make even worse, the government does not monitor what infrastructure projects it funds around the country allowing public funds to be diverted elsewhere or simply disappeared without the actual projects being carried out.
Perhaps this explains how billions of Kinas on infrastructure development have been siphoned and squandered. The practice of using public office to misuse and abuse public funds is known as “corruption” and it is endemic in PNG.
It has infiltrated every government institutions and key establishments – spread its roots deep among politicians, bureaucrats and ordinary public servants who are responsible for managing public funds for development.
From this it can be concluded that, leadership in this country has been the single major factor in promoting and exhorting corruption in key government sectors or agencies responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring infrastructure development projects across the country. The lack of development in the country is the reflection and manifestation of the kind and type of leadership we have had in the country over the last 37 years of independence. In fact we have leadership “syndrome” in this country. In a nutshell, leaders simply lack vision and knowledge about the long-term development of the country resulting in them adopting temporarily or short-term measures to solve deep and complicated problems which need long-term solutions.
Can Papua New Guinea overcome corruption, infrastructure woes, and development challenges?
The country does not need trillions of Kina to solve the worsening infrastructure woes or to provide adequate basic services to its people.
Instead, what the country desperately needs is visionary, honest and transparent leadership who can be able to look into the future – clearly outline the development path to achieve certain development goals and targets. The country needs leadership who can put the interest of the country and people first before theirs to stop corruption.
Nations have become great for what they have created or achieved by men themselves but not what has been created by the nature before them. What the nature has created is for men to find their own purpose in them. It is not for men to boast about them or plunder them to their destruction and extinction.
The leadership in the country has failed to utilize the revenue collected from the boom in the natural resources to develop and progress the country.
Before the natural resources run dry, the political leaders need to set long-term visions and strategies and relate them into action and developmental plans to develop Papua New Guinea. The worse is yet to come if the country fails to deliver to its people what they need the most.
To stop public funds from being continuously siphoned and squandered, the government should pass legislations that will limit or remove the opportunities exist within the systems which expose public funds to be abused, misused and stolen. Such efforts should start from where the public funds are managed and distributed all the way to the districts or villages where the funds are used.
Monitoring of these funds is also very important. All government funds embarked for projects should show physical evidence of the existence of such projects by physical inspection or by photographs and GPS.
In addition, the government should pass legislations with strict penalties for those who abuse, misuse and steal public funds for their own gain. They should be prosecuted and put behind bars or hanged.
This is a key anti-corruption policy area for the current O’Neil-Dion Government to consider if this government is serious about stopping corruption because this is one of the main ways in which public funds are abused, missed or stolen.
To provide high quality and high standard infrastructure that can last long, the government should standardize and modernize the designs for all public infrastructures projects such as bridges, roads, buildings for classrooms, aid posts and clinics, etc.
All infrastructures should be built according to national standard designs according to a standardization development plan to develop and modernize Papua New Guinea.
Finally, all companies that engaged by the government for public infrastructure projects around the country should comply with stringent requirements. These companies should demonstrate their capacity, experience and capability to construct high standard and high quality infrastructures.
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