From REGINALD RENAGI
Every MP elected by parliament to become the
CEO PNG Inc. represents the people as well as being head of our
government.
As prime minister of the
day, he alone must take full responsibility for the way our country’s national
business is conducted.
PNG’s national interests
clearly stated in our constitution are all-enduring.
They are still very much
valid today but unfulfilled by the state and its many agencies over the
years.
Had we followed our earlier
plans diligently, then PNG would be a better country and just society now.
This unfortunately is not
the case we are faced with 35 years after becoming independent from Australia .
Many reasons contributed to
PNG’s present woes.
However, the main
contributing factor to our present-day problems must also be directly
attributed to all political leaders since independence.
Successive PMs, as captains
of our state ship never really stuck to the one course being steered at any one
time long enough before making many tacks (as in sailing, to catch strong
breezes by making the spinnaker full and getting good steerage).
All our captains
unfortunately did not make the required adjustments in the way they ran their
ship.
They all failed to ensure
the ship’s daily business was managed by competent crew members.
The training of the ship’s
crew is always the captain's sole responsibility.
They unfortunately failed in ensuring their
senior officers and crew were always fit and up to the task of running a ‘tight
ship’ at all times, in any weather conditions; 24/7 and 365 days of the
calendar year.
Firstly, the PNG ship was
not ready in all respects for sea in 1975.
The then administration was
being run by an all Australia-made team who failed to diligently prepare the
PNG ship for sea.
They knew what would happen
when you send someone to sea without the pre-sea training perquisites being
done which includes crew training as well.
This did not happen and Australia did
not exercise its full duty of care.
Secondly, the captain was in
a hurry to go to sea with his new crew, so perhaps saw no need for more time in
doing other related training.
This would have been good.
It would have fully prepared for any future
situations.
Thirdly, Australia knew full-well our man
was in some sort of a hurry, but was not quiet ready yet.
It could still have told the captain about the
delayed sailing plan until they were fully confident the ship was ready in all
respects for sea before the launching ceremony.
Only after doing this and making sure all
other safety checks have been thoroughly done then Australia would be in a very good
position to hand the ship over to its new owners (the people/shareholders of
PNG).
As it turned out, the captain
was not properly trained and Australians also knew this same man is expected in
time to impart what he was briefly taught, or knows; passed on his crew members
later.
Therefore, nothing today
should even surprise our political leaders, especially recent captains of our
ship.
Sadly, the captain in his
quiet moments is probably regretful that he has not made a very good job of it
as he contemplates what life would be like after retirement.
Hence, on hindsight, the man
at the helm should know exactly what is really wrong with our ship today.
Is he able to fix the very
big problems now, before it is too late?
The writer and many other
PNG observers have great reservations over this prospect, as Father Time waits
for no man.
In addition, the captain’s
long service is no reason to sing praises now about what a great ship we have,
as most things onboard are not ‘ship-shaped’.
Worse, the passenger’s state
of health is very poor and has not really improved at all over the long voyage.
Many are getting sicker by the day and are
still dying at sea.
The captain can save them if
he chose, and commits to it now.
This is not happening.
Either he cannot, does not
know how to or simply have now lost the zest that initially went with the
job.
One usually gets into this
rut when in the job too long and sadly the novelty of the job wears off over
time.
This is totally unacceptable and must change
for the better, for obvious reasons.
PNG is where it is today
because of leadership failure.
Many bad things have
happened in PNG because of inaction by its many captains of state over the
years.
The man at the helm has steered too many
different courses.
This made several captains over the years to
be publicly perceived as not fully competent to steer PNG in taking her
rightful place in the 21st Century.
The other thing worth noting
here is that the passenger’s constant cries to the captain for help on where
the ship was heading and its final destination were, and is still being ignored
to this very day.
This has made the ship's
passengers very angry, frustrated and many tried to rebelled, not follow orders
with many creating little pockets of social fragmented resistance groups for
self-preservation and daily survival purposes.
The solution to PNG’s
problem is obvious.
Activate our leadership ‘succession
plan’ now.
The time is right to make a
good sea-change and is needed today before the ship runs aground.
Many bad things have been
done in contrary to PNG's national interests.
PNG needs a fresh new competent political
leadership.
The leader must be someone
with a heart for PNG and knows what the job entails by doing it well without
compromise.
The new PNG leader from here
on must at the same time take full responsibility for the safety of his
passengers, and the ship's cargo at all times.
PNG’s new captain needs to
stay on a true course without wavering.
So in review, PNG had a good
vision at independence.
But through several poor political leadership
right up to the present time, the country is not where it was first planned to
be 35 years ago.
There is not much point in crying over split
milk now by people in their comfort zones in making a bad job of defending the
ship’s captain.
In 1975, Australia failed big time to not
properly prepare PNG's state ship.
Due to Australia's grand strategic failure, it
is now shamelessly seen spending billions of its taxpayers' money trying to buy
PNG ships' stores whenever supplies are running low, now and then.
This is not fair on the
Australian taxpayers because the ship of another country is actually making its
own money with good profits.
But its whole money management is wrong, with
the captain and crew's actions to date being assessed as very highly
questionable; and in some cases deemed illegal.
So who is going to
court-martial the captain and crew of our ship?
As nothing is being done,
the risk of mutiny ever increases with the passing of time.
It might put a stop to this because many
state agencies entrusted to stop the people doing this are failing in their
mandated jobs to prosecute and convict those who steal from the national
coffers.
All in all, Australia
should have seen this coming some 35 years before but pretended ignorance at
the time.
It wanted to see a quick ship delivery to its
new owners with no moral sense of duty to do the right thing by PNG.
What is now happening today
in PNG should not even surprise Australia
one bit.
It will be interesting to
see what Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott's future bi-lateral strategy is on what
they plan to do about PNG after they get past their ‘hung parliament’
predicament and move forward this year.
Whether it will be Julia or
Tony in charge does not really matter to PNG.
What really matters now is
how the new Australian leadership will constructively deal with PNG with its
ongoing development challenges.
Reginald Renagi is a trainer of
seafarers and formerly trained/served on many different classes of warships in
the Royal Australian Navy.
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