Adventures in futility: an open letter to the Acting Minister for Education
By J L BRAUN
Attention: Hon James Marape, Parliament Haus
On a personal note, I trust you’re sitting down, sir.
We near the first anniversary of my initial expression of interest via email to FinCorp Haus’s Assistant Secretary for National High Schools. Evidently Joyce Tepu doesn’t monitor her inbox. (Do any officials?)
This despite her Prime Minister’s recurring public admonitions for the public service to implement implement implement.
Therefore, three weeks later I airmail a thick envelope to Secretary Musawe Sinabare and Deputy Luke Taita, requesting them to forward my credentials to the Curriculum Branch and other relevant personnel. I await acknowledgement.
In Tony Fova’s late-September published proclamation related to OBE exit strategy, he requests suggestions, confirms his appointment as Executive Officer for the OBE Secretariat, and reveals his phone numbers and email contact. My email to him elicits Message copied…I shall pass your papers over to Ms Tepu. You know the rest, sir.
To my email for any assistance whatsoever, Sir Paulias has the good graces to reply. Indeed, he recalls a protracted in-flight conversation two decades past and offers encouraging words, courtesy copying to several FinCorp Haus wantoks, who have yet to respond.
In late October in desperation I arrange with a prominent PNGian political affairs blogger to receive and forward my emailed credentials to wantoks, Prime Ministerial clerks who would, he assures me, print and forward same to PM O’Neill and (then) Education Minister Aihi. Presumably their printer runs out of ink and, due to budgetary constraints, awaits replenishment.
My credentials airmailed to Kerevat and Port Moresby NHS headmasters Ray Alo and David Diowai: relegated to File 13?
Repeated phone calls plus emails plus faxes to Veronica, Mina and Alexander at your embassy in Washington? Surely, sir, indifference is not a duty! Does not Ambassador Paki’s demographic mandate also include Canadians who are not corporate investors?
Personal emails to editors of both dailies remain unanswered. Remarks intended for publication are ignored. Seemingly the local press prefers local letters. Their prerogative.
FinCorp Haus’s electronic global info and public relations organ is pretty well defunct. Be assured, Mr Marape, the dismal form and outdated content of www.education.gov.pg would deter any foreign educators. I ring the official phone number innumerable times. No-one picks up. I contact Contact. I alert Webmaster. To no avail.
Department of Personnel Management’s website similarly requires wholesale competent renovations.
In mid-October your head honcho over at the Teaching Service Commission, Samson Wangihomie, is interviewed by Radio Australia. He reveals your government’s current civil-service-wide embargo on recruitment of foreigners. Evidently the NEB’s appeal for NEC to “uplift” it awaits reply. Of these facts I was unaware.
This announcement coincides with PM O’Neill’s and Minister Aihi’s many subsequent broadcasted interviews and published remarks. Both express an intention to urgently engage foreign teachers in this Year of Implementation.
My letter to Mr Wangihomie has yet to be replied. Similarly, my letters to a former colleague turned Member of Parliament.
Thanks for lifting the embargo, sir! It provides me further impetus!
Well, Mr Marape. I was stymied. Nevertheless, I persevered.
Shortly after your appointment to the Education portfolio, I once again airmailed another expression of interest – this one addressed to you in care of Parliament Haus.
Do you at all recollect your 25 February reply? You wrote to thank me for your mail sent on 20 December 2012. It came to my attention on 19 February 2013 and I am responding accordingly.
And so it came to pass that with great gratitude I indeed received your response on 3 April in an airmailed envelope postmarked 13 March. Em nau!
Beneath your Ministerial letterhead: I have read with regret that several correspondences you have sent have not been replied…I cannot commend [!] on their non attentiveness but undoubtedly their busy schedules could have been the mainstay in not attending to your mails…For the record none of the package you mailed [to my predecessor] came my way…
I am intrigued by your eagerness to contribute to the development of the English Literature in view of the depth of exposure you have had whilst having worked here in this country. I will be raising your interest with the authorities under my Ministry of Education of your credentials when you send them with a view to engaging you where we lack capacity. I look forward to hearing from you again.
You most certainly have, Mr Marape.
In compliance to your expression of interest, on 8 April I airmailed to Parliament Haus another thick envelope, courtesy copying to your FinCorp Haus office, your Vulupindi Haus officer, your PNCP headquarters, to Acting Secretary Luke Taita, to Teaching Service Commission’s Baran Sori, and to Fr Jan Czuba, your Chairman of the OBE Special Task Team.
I again summarized my past achievements in your education sector, and my vision for the many varied contributions I could conceivably make to education reform, including your Schools of Excellence project.
My conclusion requested that my package be forwarded to your Curriculum Branch and other subordinates whom you deemed would be interested. I appealed for responses electronically – phone, email, Skype.
Nearly twenty-one years, during a touristic sojourn through PNG, I personally submitted my credentials at Fincorp Haus. They were enthusiastically welcomed, celebrated with Goroka’s finest and two awful buai.
There followed seven months of bureaucratic rigmarole for the work visa. I finally arrived on campus to grateful students, and colleagues grateful to receive direction and finally spared relief duties during the month’s delay.
I have now expended eleven months at some expense simply to express interest. Would any future aspirant tolerate the same ill regard – nay, negligence, sir – administered by your subordinates?
What have I achieved? In a sense and at the very least a true empathy for the quality of government service delivery a majority of your grassroots citizens experience every day.
My email account, Mr Marape, remains active for your and/or your subordinates’ replies.
At what point do I gently exhale and lift myself from this seat’s edge?
Attention: Hon James Marape, Parliament Haus
On a personal note, I trust you’re sitting down, sir.
We near the first anniversary of my initial expression of interest via email to FinCorp Haus’s Assistant Secretary for National High Schools. Evidently Joyce Tepu doesn’t monitor her inbox. (Do any officials?)
This despite her Prime Minister’s recurring public admonitions for the public service to implement implement implement.
Therefore, three weeks later I airmail a thick envelope to Secretary Musawe Sinabare and Deputy Luke Taita, requesting them to forward my credentials to the Curriculum Branch and other relevant personnel. I await acknowledgement.
In Tony Fova’s late-September published proclamation related to OBE exit strategy, he requests suggestions, confirms his appointment as Executive Officer for the OBE Secretariat, and reveals his phone numbers and email contact. My email to him elicits Message copied…I shall pass your papers over to Ms Tepu. You know the rest, sir.
To my email for any assistance whatsoever, Sir Paulias has the good graces to reply. Indeed, he recalls a protracted in-flight conversation two decades past and offers encouraging words, courtesy copying to several FinCorp Haus wantoks, who have yet to respond.
In late October in desperation I arrange with a prominent PNGian political affairs blogger to receive and forward my emailed credentials to wantoks, Prime Ministerial clerks who would, he assures me, print and forward same to PM O’Neill and (then) Education Minister Aihi. Presumably their printer runs out of ink and, due to budgetary constraints, awaits replenishment.
My credentials airmailed to Kerevat and Port Moresby NHS headmasters Ray Alo and David Diowai: relegated to File 13?
Repeated phone calls plus emails plus faxes to Veronica, Mina and Alexander at your embassy in Washington? Surely, sir, indifference is not a duty! Does not Ambassador Paki’s demographic mandate also include Canadians who are not corporate investors?
Personal emails to editors of both dailies remain unanswered. Remarks intended for publication are ignored. Seemingly the local press prefers local letters. Their prerogative.
FinCorp Haus’s electronic global info and public relations organ is pretty well defunct. Be assured, Mr Marape, the dismal form and outdated content of www.education.gov.pg would deter any foreign educators. I ring the official phone number innumerable times. No-one picks up. I contact Contact. I alert Webmaster. To no avail.
Department of Personnel Management’s website similarly requires wholesale competent renovations.
In mid-October your head honcho over at the Teaching Service Commission, Samson Wangihomie, is interviewed by Radio Australia. He reveals your government’s current civil-service-wide embargo on recruitment of foreigners. Evidently the NEB’s appeal for NEC to “uplift” it awaits reply. Of these facts I was unaware.
This announcement coincides with PM O’Neill’s and Minister Aihi’s many subsequent broadcasted interviews and published remarks. Both express an intention to urgently engage foreign teachers in this Year of Implementation.
My letter to Mr Wangihomie has yet to be replied. Similarly, my letters to a former colleague turned Member of Parliament.
Thanks for lifting the embargo, sir! It provides me further impetus!
Well, Mr Marape. I was stymied. Nevertheless, I persevered.
Shortly after your appointment to the Education portfolio, I once again airmailed another expression of interest – this one addressed to you in care of Parliament Haus.
Do you at all recollect your 25 February reply? You wrote to thank me for your mail sent on 20 December 2012. It came to my attention on 19 February 2013 and I am responding accordingly.
And so it came to pass that with great gratitude I indeed received your response on 3 April in an airmailed envelope postmarked 13 March. Em nau!
Beneath your Ministerial letterhead: I have read with regret that several correspondences you have sent have not been replied…I cannot commend [!] on their non attentiveness but undoubtedly their busy schedules could have been the mainstay in not attending to your mails…For the record none of the package you mailed [to my predecessor] came my way…
I am intrigued by your eagerness to contribute to the development of the English Literature in view of the depth of exposure you have had whilst having worked here in this country. I will be raising your interest with the authorities under my Ministry of Education of your credentials when you send them with a view to engaging you where we lack capacity. I look forward to hearing from you again.
You most certainly have, Mr Marape.
In compliance to your expression of interest, on 8 April I airmailed to Parliament Haus another thick envelope, courtesy copying to your FinCorp Haus office, your Vulupindi Haus officer, your PNCP headquarters, to Acting Secretary Luke Taita, to Teaching Service Commission’s Baran Sori, and to Fr Jan Czuba, your Chairman of the OBE Special Task Team.
I again summarized my past achievements in your education sector, and my vision for the many varied contributions I could conceivably make to education reform, including your Schools of Excellence project.
My conclusion requested that my package be forwarded to your Curriculum Branch and other subordinates whom you deemed would be interested. I appealed for responses electronically – phone, email, Skype.
Nearly twenty-one years, during a touristic sojourn through PNG, I personally submitted my credentials at Fincorp Haus. They were enthusiastically welcomed, celebrated with Goroka’s finest and two awful buai.
There followed seven months of bureaucratic rigmarole for the work visa. I finally arrived on campus to grateful students, and colleagues grateful to receive direction and finally spared relief duties during the month’s delay.
I have now expended eleven months at some expense simply to express interest. Would any future aspirant tolerate the same ill regard – nay, negligence, sir – administered by your subordinates?
What have I achieved? In a sense and at the very least a true empathy for the quality of government service delivery a majority of your grassroots citizens experience every day.
My email account, Mr Marape, remains active for your and/or your subordinates’ replies.
At what point do I gently exhale and lift myself from this seat’s edge?
