37 YEARS OF CORRUPTION: DO WE ACCEPT CORRUPTION AS A NORM OR IS THERE A WAY FORWARD FOR THE COUNTRY?
By LUCAS KIAP For the last 37 years of nationhood, we have been letting corruption to grow systematic and systemic - making our lives difficult, limiting our opportunities, making our systems malfunction, setting back our progresses, creating loopholes for our systems to be manipulated, distorting of our democratic values, depriving and denying us of our basic human rights and trapping millions of our citizens in poverty. We have forsaken our country and its future by confessing and accepting corruption as a norm, part of our history, cultures, and traditions. We have regarded it is as part of our way of life, for instance “Big Man” are not punishable even when they commit serious crimes. We regarded “wantok system” or nepotism as helping one another or returning a favor. Bribery has been regarded as normal and is considered as a gift to facilitate requests in a speedy or timely manner. Unfortunately, our traditional norms have presided over western norms. We are a nation at confusion