Aid programmes and the real world of Papua New Guinea

BY JOHN FOWKE

DID YOU KNOW that the justly-admired frontline medical corps, Medicins Sans Frontieres, has managed and operated Angau Memorial Hospital's medical and emergency services as best they can under difficult circumstances for the past three years, as an errand of mercy recommended by the World Health Organisation?

And a year or two later, MSF arrived in Tari, the seat of today's burgeoning gas industry . Despite harassment from drunks and criminals there, MSF continues to run this major provincial hospital catering for some 180,000 people of Hela- where for many years there was not one full-time, permanent, practicing resident Papua New Guinea national doctor, let alone the five which are needed, and for whom  aid-funded fully-furnished three-bedroom houses have long been available. Of course Tari's hydro-electric power supply was out of order for many years, needing new parts for its governing mechanism, but MSF managed somehow to get a standby diesel plant operating for the hospital, no thanks to good old Elcom.

With all the fully-justified complaint about the overpaid, often immature and pansy-hands aid-funded consultants being deployed to PNG by AusAid and the multinational aid industry, it would have been a no-brainer, one feels, to have stepped in, MSF-like, with some practical,seasoned, medical and para-medical people to prop up these and many other needy hospitals in PNG. And to send in standby diesel plants and working 'fridges for delicate materials and medicines, plus essential materials and supplies to lost-cause centres like Menyamya and Kikori and Tabibuga and Erave to name only four of many dozens.

However, none of the great brains which fund and design and implement PNG's foreign-aid programs have thought of this. Too busy with REALLY IMPORTANT projects, like telling the coffee industry for the third time in the past  10 years that it needs to re-invent the wheel of on-the-ground marketing practice, a wheel which has regularly been re-invented to no purpose at all by several groups of essentially silly bearded or bilum-wearing white-men apparently  suffering mid-life-crisis or early-onset dementia. Nothing has resulted from all this expensive input, and now yet another team from the vaunted halls of Curtin University is on its way to have yet another go.

All this money would be far and away better utilised if handed to the major, established Church Missions - most of which maintain a majority of honest, idealistic and practical trained workers operating in these essential fields., in well-maintained Church-owned institutions. Whilst I have no religious faith myself I am a strong advocate of the major Christian churches and the programmes both of a spiritual  and a practical, hands-on nature they provide to this society.

I am writing this in Goroka where the district hospital was built and opened in 1967, and for many years remained an excellent institution. Today it is very run-down, facilities for the disposal of general medical and surgical waste, for instance, have deteriorated to where they no longer exist.The nurses quarters appear to have been partly-demolished, with doors and windows stripped from otherwise sturdy concrete-block dormitories. There are nurses present in the hospital, and a pleasant and hard-working lot they are, but one has to wonder where they are forced to sleep nowadays? Supplies and operating funds are always scarce but work goes on even though patients are frequently sent into town to purchase anti-malarial drugs, penicillin, sterile dressings,hypodermic syringes and even humble aspirin and Panadol so that they or their children may be treated appropriately. The politicians of the province pay no heed this, nor to the parlous state of the Goroka sewage-farm which has sat like a great, black, stinking row of Olympic swimming-pools for years  now, growing thick forests of hollow-stemmed pitpit which reaches four and five meters to the sky. A local man, living near this rotting eyesore in what used to be "Beautiful Kolples Goroka" tells me that the pipes were opened long ago and the town's daily contribution of excreta flows, untreated, into the Asaro river. How a community can remain reasonably healthy under these cisrcumstances is a mystery. Goroka, so-far free of cholera, suffers regular epidemics of typhoid. I just wonder about all the villages and coffee-factories situated below the foetid Asaro outflow.

This is just a short list of the wrongs existing within the health system - one could go on and on – and, realistically, like law-and-order, it is a huge social problem in a society which has fallen hard between two steep mountains in its express-ride transition from the Stone Age to the Toyota Age. Nothing will change until the middle-class of PNG realises that it is an entity with the potential to steer this crazy, " wealthy-but-dirt-poor" nation into a clear and open pathway leading to fairness and equal opportunity for all its citizens.The middle-class is made up of the educated and the employed and the entrepreneurial, all of whom hope each day for a better deal for their kids. This will only come when they realise their status, not as "Kerema," or "Sepik", or "Hailans" etc etc, but as citizens of a Commonwealth- the Independent Nation of Papua New Guinea.Once the middle-class understands its real place in modern PNG, once it welds itself into a strong political entity, then this beautiful and loveable country will move towards its right and due place among all the nations of the world.When will this happen? No-one can tell at present for to all intents and purposes this land is still a collection of many mutually-jealous tribes and not a nation at all, in reality. This is a problem that any amount of aid will not solve - PNG society just has to work its way around it. Or not.

Unfortunately there is a shortage of obviously charismatic and ideological proto-leaders lurking in the bush, although we daily look for such to emerge. This will only occur when the middle-class mobilises as such, not as a clamorous mass of jealous, disparate tribes all talking about the same thing . A middle-class which is always missing the point. The point that they are their own solution if only they can stretch their imaginations and act to form a strong, convincing and above all, honest, leadership-block.

A block which also appeals to all the village-based old-timers and all the youngsters now left to waste away in hidden valleys  and dusty settlements with no roads, no opportunities, and and no insight or idea of what the world might be to them if the bonds of lack of opportunity which imprison them were to be  untied.

As for foreign friends, Australia, the EU, the World Bank, the Japanese Government and the ADB to mention the major actors, all these will do well to stop trying to carry out hugely-wasteful "capacity-building" and "re-training" and "niche marketing" nonsense-projects invented and implemented by a generation of spoiled graduate pups who think that by draping a bilum over their shoulder on arrival they have become recognisably assimilated and will be welcomed and valued  and make a contribution to PNG society. The way the ruling-class and the public service has set the system up it is almost impossible even for those elected as Governors to exert influence over the country's administration and fiscal management. Aid-funded advisors are just fiddling around the edges in these circumstances.  A new and differently-aimed set of policies need to be thought about  by the aid-providers. As things stand in PNG what needs to be done is for about 85,000 arses to be kicked and realistically offered the door if not willing to abandon current common practice in the PS and Provincial Administrations. One can't see this happening any time soon and it is with this in mind that donors should seriously re-think their programmes and policy vis-a-vis PNG.

For Australia, lets be sensible and realise that outside of MSF-type medical teams and a limited range of specialist services, the likes of Mal Meninga and his men will do far more for the relationship which Australia wants to maintain with PNG,  and also for PNG  itself, if they or their like are paid to come up and set up and make competitive the PNG League. The National Sports Institute is another target for lots of Australian help and for the formation of links with similar Aussie institutions. And whilst Australia at large is not conscious of the fact,  PNG is, like Australia, one of the few countries which fields an international lawn-bowls team. How about some of the residents of what is now called "Fort Shitscared" in Moresby venturing out on a Saturday afternoon in PoM or Lae or Goroka or Mt Hagen or Madang, to sit with club-members beside the rink and watch nice, sensible, good-mannered midde-class Papua New Guineans enjoy themselves in their spotless whites, accompanied by the odd brown bottle now and then. Here is another place where an imaginative Australia could do so much for both countries. All it takes is a little courage, a little lateral thinking, and a willingness to be a partner rather than a smiling but still heavily-patronising schoolmaster.

How about AusAid funding a tour of a really good Bougainville Bamboo Band around Oz/NZ and the Pacific, ending up at the Edinburgh Festival? This is a magnificent sound, and there are virtuosi available to thrill the rest of the world with it!  This embryo nation needs this sort of confidence-building to make it think and act like a nation, not a collection of several hundred jealous tribes who can't form a bond of common interest largely because under their leadership since independence they have achieved so little as a nation.

From an Australian perspective, lets do lots of a practical nature in the areas of health and education in areas where MSF-style intervention is the only answer to the peoples' needs; lets help develop sport and the arts especially music and dance. Lets get competitive badminton going- this can easily and affordably be played at village level, and its HUGE in Asia. Why not in PNG?

Lets get Australian communities to collect container-loads of books and send them up to nominated communities as demonstrations of good-fellowship and  a desire to help. Lets design and ship prefabricated steel school-library buildings. This list is endless, and with due and careful consideration a much more people-friendly, human and mate-to-mate sort of relationship might be forged between close neighbours than that which exists between us now.We're always going to be neighbours. Always.

Oz lawyers to strengthen Papua New Guinea governance

From PAUL OATES
I refer to the article in today's PNG Attitude titled 'Australian lawyers to strengthen governance'.
______________________________________

This initiative raises a few concerns.
Firstly, why does Papua New Guinea need qualified lawyers to improve public service governance? This is a straightforward management and internal audit function that requires a proven administrative skills set and not a qualified legal one. Also, no overseas applicant should be recruited for these positions unless it has first been established that there are no suitable PNG applicants available.
Secondly, these lawyers should be working directly to the Australian Department and not a consultancy company.
Thirdly, there should be some limitations specified in the contracts to be undertaken by the occupants of those positions in the Office of the Solicitor General?
Here are some suggestions for inclusion in these contracts:
1. There must be a guaranteed outcomes based, independent assessment on a half yearly basis with the Australian employer and achievement targets agreed on, at the start of each assessment period. Non achievement of agreed targets effectively causes contract termination and an automatic cessation of employment.
2. Successful applicants must sign an agreement to conduct an effective training programme with guaranteed skills transfer to at least two PNG officers each year. The agreed training program to be put together and assessed by the law societies of both PNG and Australia on an ongoing monthly basis after discussion and agreement by both the training officer and the PNG officers being trained.
3. Agreed parameters are to be written into each contract to ensure that those officers recruited and the PNG officers being trained will not be in any way undertaking any work associated or involved with the defence of the members of PNG Parliament or PNG public service officers, should these PNG persons be personally or severally involved in any legal action on any issue.
4. Successful applicants must have proven, cultural sensitivity and an awareness of PNG culture and customs.
5. Successful applicants must have a minimum of 5 years proven experience in working with the same types of matters and issues they will be required to work on during the period of their contract.
6. Each successful applicant must be able to allowed to communicate with both PNG government and PNG Opposition members.
______________________
06 June 2010
Australian lawyers to strengthen governance
BY DONALD HOOK

THE AUSTRALIAN Government will appoint three senior lawyers to work with the law and justice component of Papua New Guinea's Strongim Gavman programme.
The programme is designed to improve governance, law and policing in PNG.
Two of the lawyers will be senior litigation advisers in the office of the PNG Solicitor-General.
The other will be a senior commercial law adviser in the office of the State Solicitor.
Australia's Attorney-General's Department, which manages the law and justice but not the policing component of Strongim Gavman, advertised the three positions in Australian newspapers this weekend.
The two-year appointments - with the possibility of a one-year extension - have a tax free annual salary range of $132,652 to $145,385 plus allowances.

NASFUND Launches Phase 2 of TEXTBAL

THERE ARE NOW TWO OPTIONS TO ACCESS YOUR BALANCE ELECTRONICALLY

If you are a member of NASFUND and have access to a DIGICEL phone, you can now retrieve your NASFUND superannuation balance in two easy steps anytime you wish.
1. Press *627* enter your membership number followed by # key.
2. Press send.

Your Superannuation balance will be sent via text straight to your phone.
Note: 1. You will not be charged for this call
2. This service works only on Digicel phones
3. There is no registration involved and
4. This service operates 24 hours a day

If you want a service where you are sent a text message every time your superannuation balance is updated then you will need to register via a Text Bal Registration form.

Note: 1. This service is free to Members
2. This service works on both Digicel and Be Mobile
3. You must register for this service.

ANOTHER REFORM FROM THE LEADERS IN SUPERANNUATION
www.nasfund.com.pg

Madang children clean up town on World Environment Day

Children picking up rubbish to load on to a small truck being driven by Sir Peter Barter.-Pictures courtesy of SIR PETER BARTER

Madang Resort Hotel staffer Sibona Mahi and children cleaning up Madang on World Environment Day

By MALUM NALU

Spurred on by environmentalist/rower Roz Savage’s visit, downtown Madang was cleaned up over World Environment Day on Saturday by children of Madang Resort Hotel staff.

Hotel owner Sir Peter Barter and staffer Sibona Mani, together with the children, collected several bags, filling several truckloads and emptying rubbish that was overflowing onto the roads.

Sir Peter said this was not exactly a new task carried out by the children, as it was done many times during the year.

“Despite these attempts to keep clean, the Madang urban council makes no attempt to thank the children, nor does it appear to be making any real attempt to clean the town or repair the roads,” he said.

“Perhaps we should all refuse to pay land rates.

“This may make them aware of the total disgust rate payers have in the performance of a council that is rarely seen, makes little or no attempt to tell the tax/rate payers how the money is spent to improve the image of the town.”

Madang lays down the red carpet for woman rower

By MALUM NALU

 

British ocean rower and environmental campaigner Roz Savage was feted like royalty when she arrived in Madang last Friday after an epic 47-day rowing voyage from Tarawa in Kiribati.

Savage made landfall at 8am last  Friday, completing her three-stage trip and becoming the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

She was met by flotilla of more than 100 traditional canoes, adorned in PNG style and PNG flags.  

More than 5, 000 men, women and children, many in traditional dress – in one of the biggest events in Madang in recent times -  lined the entrance of Dallman Passage and Kalibobo Village waving to Savage she moved slowly into the dock at the Madang Resort. 

On arrival she was met by customs, immigration, and quarantine and officially cleared and then welcomed by the Governor Sir Arnold Amet.  

Literally hundreds of people shook hands with Savage, most of whom had pictures taken with her. 

“The welcome was spectacular,” she said today (Sunday).

“I really had no expectations at all and I can’t believe how many people were there.

“It was fantastic and I really enjoyed being escorted by the canoes.”

Sir Peter Barter welcomed her, explained the purpose of her visit and Savage then spoke, saying she chose Madang on the advice of famous French oceanographer Jean-Michel Costeau, who visited Madang in the 1980s with his father, Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Savage spoke of the million of strokes and how she had crossed an ocean.

She went on to tell the people that they too could make a contribution by many people doing small things to look after the environment.

She told the crowd that during her stay over four weeks she would visit schools, meet students and talk to them about protecting the planet.

 Numerous people presented bilum bags, yabob pots and other gifts as an appreciation and the formal welcome was done by children from Milne Bay and students of Krangket Island.

Savage said she was overwhelmed by the red carpet welcome and was really enjoying the natural beauty of Madang.

“I want to get to know Madang a little bit,” she said.

“I went diving yesterday (Saturday) and Madang has some of the most-beautiful diving in the world.

“I’d like to say thank you to everybody.

“Walking around town, it’s been really good, with everyone wanting to shake hands with me and take pictures.”

Savage set off in her 23-foot boat from Tarawa, Kiribati, in mid-April on the final leg of her Pacific voyage.

In total, she spent about 250 days alone at sea, rowing more than 8,000 miles and taking an estimated 2.5 million oar strokes along the way.

Savage traveled from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2008, then on to Tarawa last year, before finally arriving in Madang.

“My Pacific row has been to raise awareness on climate change and to say that we will have to do our part,” she said.

“Every action counts.”

 Savage said that after taking a well-deserved break in Madang, she would be moving down to Perth, Western Australia, for the Indian Ocean stretch of her epic voyage from Perth to Mauritius in Africa.

Why hasn't legal action commenced?

From PAUL OATES

In what appears to be an open and shut case of massive fraud, an article on the following website details how the Papua New Guinea government has paid out millions of kina in what the Finance Commission of Inquiry specifies in their report are fraudulent payments.
http://pngexposed.wordpress.com/
Tom Rangip and Pacific Paradise Foods unlawfully paid K14.85 million
If the investigation has already been completed and the factual evidence is already available, why hasn't the PNG police service taken immediate action to bring this matter to court?
 The money that has been reportedly stolen from the state could have built new accommodation for those hard working policemen and their families who are reportedly living in sub standard accommodation around the country.
Why hasn't the Public Prosecutor taken immediate action on this report and the many other findings from the high level Inquiry?
The money that has reportedly been stolen from the government could have paid for more staff for the Public Prosecutor to take legal action against those who are financially bleeding PNG dry.
So if the PNG authorities cannot act on what appears to be a clear cut illegal activity, perhaps they themselves should be investigated by the PNG Ombudsman Commission to determine why this is so?
Perhaps the Chief Ombudsman should issue a public statement to the effect that any public authority who is not clearly and energetically carrying out the activities it has been set up to do will be required to publically state "Why not?"
 The Ombudsman Commission could well have used the reported K15m in fraudulent payments to investigate further malpractice and malfeance.
Maybe the Ombudsman's review should also look at the Solicitor General and any PNG government audit body who have apparently been paid to a job they appear to be unable to carry out. In business, if you can't perform what you set out to do, your business goes bankrupt and you lose everything.
In PNG however, if you are in a government authority that doesn't do what it is paid to do, you continue to get paid.
In many people's eyes, that situation could be another glaring case of fraud.

Mioks unfazed

Crunch time ... Masta Mak Rangers centre Robert Nandie (left) and winger Ham Tee tackling ACTL Lae Bombers Bal Kaupa during the bemobile Cup in Port Moresby last Sunday. – Nationalpic by AURI EVA

Players unhappy with coach but unbeaten Engans remain focused
By ZACHERY PER

TOYOTA Enga Mioks are unfazed by the controversy surrounding their coach Gabriel Kiluwa and the players when the Engans take on Bintangor Goroka Lahanis at the National Sports Institute (NSI) in round five of the bemobile Cup tomorrow, The National reports.
The Lahanis are also bracing for a tough encounter as they also have their own in-house issues following the sudden resignation of deputy board chairman Himony Lapiso on Monday. Lapiso resigned from the Lahanis Board following public criticisms.
The Mioks board is understood to have resolved their internal feud following the call to remove Kiluwa passing on information to the board without the players’ consent.
Kiluwa maintained that he was appointed by Enga Governor Peter Ipatas and was subjected to Ipatas’ decision regarding his tenure with the Mioks.
In response, Mioks players made it clear that their three wins and their current second placing on the bemobile Cup ladder was done without Kiluwa’s tactical input.
Instead captain James Meninga and vice-captains David Loko and Mose Lam claimed that the true architect of the Mioks’ successes so far was team manager Timothy Lepa.
They said this trend was unlikely to change when they play the Lahanis this on Sunday.
Incidently, the Mioks have yet to win in Goroka since re-entering last year and are keen to continue their strong form with a win at NSI.
Lepa explained that despite the situation in the Mioks camp, the players are all geared up and prepared for their clash with the Lahanis.
Former Lahanis try scoring wizard and centre Garnet Auwo, who has scored in all the Mioks three games so far, has also vowed to avenged his sacking from Lahanis this season.
Mioks scooped Auwo following his sacking along several other Lahanis players at the end of last season.
The Mioks are benefiting from the former representative winger. Auwo will be ably supported by freakish ball runner and fellow Goroka Nowek Royals player Pasu Peter Avani.
The likely Mioks line-up for Sunday features a solid forward pack in the likes of props Esau Siune and Timothy Clement, backrowers James Gend, Loko, Wanpis James and rake Leon Cletus.
The bench should see Jonah Mackay, Anderson Tewi, Diki Aiyo and Young Pamus.
Skipper Meninga has been shifted back to his traditional fullback position to cater for young Joel Punas who slots into the five-eighth.
Halfback Lam, Auwo, Avani, Junior Bal Kawa, Jefery Maino, Jason Tali and Ben Jomino appear to have a slight edge over the ir opposites in theLahanis outfit.
The host have the weight, height and speed advantage in the likes of skipper Nigel Hukula, England based player Nicko Slain, John Milba and Glen Nami, however, the forwards fire power of late has been lacking unless they improve this Sunday the Lahanis 2010 campaign could take fatal blow.
For the Goroka franchise the recall of electrifying scrumhalf Casey Frank should add some class to the backline, however, newcomers like Jerry Akepa, Adex Wera, Ismael Awute, Thompson Tete, Joseph Peter, Jasper Philip, Wally Laua and Spiro Mikaive must withstand the expected Mioks aggression and be disciplined enough to stick to the game plan of coach Peter Danga.