YOU Promote PNG’s High Level of Corruption If You Want Patrick Pruaitch’s Personal Life To Remain Private!
The photo is out in the open and the silent majority has spoken on PNG Blogs. As of this writing, 291 Facebookers gave a thumbs up to PNG Blogs publishing the photo of Patrick Pruaitch looking like a smelly, sweaty street drunk. This, the man who is the Minister of the Treasury.
Yes, the silent majority appreciated the exposure of Patrick Pruaitch. The vocal minority felt differently. About 85% of those who spoke out with an opinion were against PNG Blogs putting up the Pruaitch photo. The repeated message of these postings was that Pruaitch has the right to act silly and stupid in private, and that privacy should be respected.
One wonders about the personal lives of the 85% who didn’t like Pruaitch’s picture being posted. How many of these Facebookers have their own personal tendency to act worse than Pruaitch? How many of those who hate what PNG Blogs did by publishing the photos so strongly defend the right of others to misbehave in the hopes that it protect their own “right” to act like idiots?
It’s fair to ask whether we can legitimately call what’s displayed in the Pruaitsch photo misbehaviour? Of course we can. Pruaitch isn’t acting the way we would expect a respectful, admired national leader to conduct themselves. What percentage of the population actually looks up to and feels respect for a grown adult who acts like a moron when they think the public isn’t watching? Is staggering around with a bottle of SP, talking nonsense and letting the whole world know that you’re incapable of handling alcohol maturely a sign of leadership? Does that kind of behaviour symbolise what we would consider to be a thoughtful intellectual? Or a caring and concerned person working for the good of all?
Of course not. Few people respect those who don’t show some personal self control and maturity, both in private and public. Mature grownups learn to relax, have fun, and get away from the pressure of their jobs without losing their self respect or making fools of themselves.
That’s why it sounds so ridiculous to defend a politician looking like he lives on the streets, like many of you did when the photo came out. Maybe some of you don’t realise that this photo is just one of many indications of this man’s sad personal conduct. Pruaitch’s drunken antics used to be so common and so public that even his father in law, Michael Somare finally got fed up with the embarrassment Pruaitch was giving him and screamed at him in private to start acting like a man, not a child. Pruaitch cultured his alcoholism during the 10 years he spent working for SP Breweries in the Sales and Marketing Section and it appears that the bottle still bosses Patrick Pruaitch.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Pruaitch is a well known serial adulterer, a few affairs of which turned into serial wives. The last report, a few years old, is that he had 3 wives: a Madang woman (bearing son Russel), a Yangoru/ENB wife (bearing daughter Vanessa, son Alec and adopted son Martin), and a New Ireland Chinese/East New Britain wife (bearing son Josh and daughter Patricia). He discards women, he beats women, and different wives have tried to get away from him. None of that indicates a person of respectful character. The more logical picture is that of an individual who thinks only of themselves and their satisfaction, and lacks self control.
The photo published yesterday on PNG Blogs is merely one piece of evidence out of endless indications that Patrick Pruaitch is one of the worst of PNG leaders, a man who was widely reported to have taken bribes from the Malaysian and Chinese loggers during his time as Minister of Forests and who was up to some kind of monkey business in getting money to fund the 2007 elections. On 3 April of that year, he joined Somare and Peter O'Neill on a flight to Singapore, during which they acted like they were trying to keep as low a profile as possible. Following that trip, the NA gained some big deposits into their bank account. Such corruption have become “normal” for PNG politics but that doesn’t make it right. It represents the sellout of our nation for personal gain. Patrick Pruaitch is a symbol of all that is rotten in PNG politics.
Those of you who got angry about the photo because you think it is the right of a politician to act like a common worker or a average Joe, are defending the kind of low standards that pull our whole society down. The vocal minority in our country conduct themselves disrespectfully often enough that of course they’re going to defend the right of politicians to do the same.
Maybe that’s the standard with the average Joe Blow in PNG but it’s not the kind of standard one expects from leaders if, in fact, we ever want to see PNG push away its long standing reputation as a banana republic rule by morons.
As mature, responsible members of civil society, it is within the public’s right to know the private lives of our public figures, especially our politicians. After all, these national leaders officially represent us all. Their every move is closely watched and not just within PNG. If they step out of line, the danger is that we’ll all be painted with the same brush of ridicule and disrespect. The behaviour of our public officials influence the standards we all operate by and aspire to.
If our public officials can’t control themselves in private, then one can legitimately suspect, and probably be right, that they can’t control themselves in their role as a public servant, whose paycheck comes from our taxes. An impulsive drinker has a good chance of being an impulsive adulterer, an impulsive stealer, or an impulsively corrupt con man. Someone who can’t control the amount of food they eat and can never say no to more has the kind of personality that also cannot resist taking public money when no one is looking. How a person conducts themselves in private when they think no one is looking says a lot about their personal character.
Why do we defend our public official’s right to keep their immoral and unethical private behaviour unreported and hidden? Why would we want such people representing us as our leaders?
National leadership is not for the mediocre nor the average Joe who spend the fortnight paycheque on beer rather than family or has his secret romantic flings on the side unbeknownst to his wife. Of course such scumbags sometimes manage to make it to positions of high power. They then proceed to abuse that power by violating the 10 commandments right and left. But their transgressions should not become the national standards, nor should we look on such people with approval or respect.
A big reason why PNG has such high corruption amongst our public officials compared to so many nations is because in PNG we have a vocal minority who defends corruption by defending the moral and ethical corruption of our national leaders. They defend the “right” of public figures to act like imbeciles in private.
This is quite different than what is considered acceptable in societies that have low levels of corruption. In those countries, you’ll commonly find a public attitude that anyone who chooses to pursue a public life has done so willingly and knowing that their life will become an open book. Thus, reporters are always looking to reveal unpleasant secrets because scrutinising public figures behind as well as in front of closed doors forces them to be accountable to the people to whom they owe their power and position on a high pedestal.
Embarrassing scandals of politicians come out all the time in the UK, Australian and American media, and throughout Europe. Politicians find their entire careers destroyed by one wrong action in private, captured by a hidden camera. That is as it should be. It is the only way to keep standards high for leaders of a nation.
In contract to all that has PNG society become so morally low that we would defend the right of our leaders to hide personality characteristics that would give them away as being unfit for public office? It seems so, looking at the past day’s unhappy comments on the posting of the Pruaitch photo.
Of course no one is perfect. Yet surely out of 7 million people we can find 111 individuals who conduct themselves with honour? Is that too difficult a standard to achieve? Is it truly impossible in PNG to find and elect leaders who have developed the self discipline to conduct themselves properly in private as well as public?
We keep repeating over and over again that we’re a Christian nation. Shouldn't we have leaders who unmistakably follow a Christian pathway in private as well as public life and shouldn't we keep the house clean by removing those who we find out don’t fit high standards? You who didn't like Pruaitch’s photo being published, why are YOUR standards of how our politicians should behave so low?
It’s time that those of you who defend the right of our public officials to be corrupt and misbehave in private to stop imposing your low personal standards on the nation as a whole.
The silent majority want PNG respectable leaders who show some self control. It’s long overdue that all PNG public figures are put on alert that if they don’t serve our nation with distinction, they’re going to be exposed, ridiculed, and run out of public life leaving voids that we can fill with respectable citizens. Enough of this nonsense where we defend the “right” of our national leaders to act like small children at best, and like dogs and pigs at worse.
Thank you kindly PNG Blogs for publishing that photo of one of our most consistently embarrassing politician and most distinguished fool, the Dishonourable Patrick Pruaitch.
My friends, there is no law against exposing the private actions of our leaders. Let the scandals come out, let their disrespectful private lives be publicised to the entire world. The unhappy pollies have no legal basis to sue PNG Blogs, and who would they sue anyway?
Over the past months, thanks to PNG Blogs we have been given a continuing line of details on how pathetic our national leadership actually is. They are the worst role models available yet we call them Honourable leaders. Their personal conduct drags down the country and makes us laughingstocks to the world. Patrick Pruaitch is one PNG politician who richly deserves that his antics be made public. The published photo is but a small symbol of how pathetic this man really is. He treats his own constituency with disdain with the assumption that he can always buy their votes.
May Patrick Pruaitch come to rot in hell, the sooner the better.
