Inability to account is a big issue

By JAMES WANJIK

 

 Papua New Guinea leaders, both elected and appointed, have accountability problem.

 Sovereignty of PNG is at risk.

Politicians and bureaucrats are lost and confused.

 They run our country but they operate as raskols.

 They keep telling us to wait till 2050 to be wealthy.

 Making money and cargo their priority, leaders work for big businesses with deep pockets.

It is no coincidence leaders do not want to account.

 Look at Somare’s case.

He has gone to court to nullify an investigation by the Ombudsman Commission.

 Though leaders are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, no leader has paid attention to the role of the Ombudsman Commission.

 Is it a Public Prosecutor?

No.

 So, why is it that, it is the Ombudsman Commission that has taken on the leaders, even after it has referred its findings to the Public Prosecutor?

 In recent times, the courts have taken the fray.

They have played politics on the bench.

 Time and again we read in the print media about judges making observations about politicians.

It shows bias.

 Many leaders are gutless to take on the judges.

 Judges are lawyers with high ethical and moral code of conduct but are they now?

 PNG had a very good start at Independence in 1975.

 Only a mere 35 years on our courts have become a place for leaders playing politics.

 Supreme Court is worse.

 Making laws under the guise of interpreting them have been the biggest blunder.

 A very good example is Patrick Pruaitch’s case.

A judge of the Supreme Court made it his business to raise an issue that was not an issue before the lower court or even the Leadership Tribunal.

He took it upon himself to make law on the bench.

That is, other leaders, whose Leadership Tribunals have been appointed prior, are still in office, performing leadership duties, while Patrick Pruaitch had been ordered by the Supreme Court to refrain from performing official duties.

 Which law did Patrick Pruaitch breach to be treated differently from other leaders?

 Why have not the Ombudsman Commission and the Supreme Court been consistent and fair?

 Leaders are not accountable.

 Bureaucrats are not accountable.

And if judges are going to follow suit, then we, the people, must wake up and demand, all our leaders, both elected and appointed, to account.

 May God bless PNG.

 

 

James Wanjik

Port Moresby

 08^th December 2010