Citizens of Papua New Guinea often accuse elected leaders (politicians) and public servants of being corrupt and not performing their duties and responsibilities.

Some of these public office holders certainly engage in corrupt activities or are accessories. No doubt about that. Papua New Guinea would have progressed in leaps and bounds since independence in 1975, if public office holders did not engage in corrupt activities and allowed the systems and processes of government to function as intended. Were it not for corruption and its debilitating effects, PNG would have also progressed many fold given that it is endowed with a rich array of natural resources and is closer to the massive economic markets in Asia and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand).

The under par performance of PNG as a developing country has been a topic in endless discussions among citizens over the last 44 years of independence.

Citizens constantly leave the blame on the under-performance of PNG on MPs and public servants, accusing the public officials of engaging in corrupt activities and not performing and thereby suppressing the development and progress of the country.

At present one of the topics in the various discussion forums in peer groups in the villages, towns, cities and in the media is about the performance of MPs and public servants.

People are juxtaposing the performance of the MPs with their observations with the coming national elections in 2022.

Public servants like heads of departments, provincial administrators and district administrators (chief executive officers of district development authorities) are being thrown into the mix of the performance review held in the opinions of the citizens in their respective forums.

People are already talking about candidates that would challenge the sitting MPs in 2022. Some would be candidates are also showing their interests of contesting by engaging in community causes and assisting those in need in their electorates. In districts of the Highlands region, where quest for political office is a highly competitive engagement, goodwill gestures by elites are viewed as coming from someone with an intention to contest in the next national election. The sponsors of these goodwill gestures in turn receive accolades from the recipients and members of the concerned impacted communities, some of which are dutifully shared on Facebook and mainstream media.

At this time, members of the public are either praising the sitting MPs or accusing them of nonperformance, especially in the delivery of services in their districts and provinces (in the case of governors).

Many are complaining about their MPs not subsidizing the fees of students from their electorate like some other MPs are doing. Others are claiming their MP has not done a list of things in their respective local level government (LLG) areas or tribal lands.

From these discussions, we can deduce that people see the MPs as the ultimate deliverers of services in the districts and provinces. People hardly see the MPs as legislators and policymakers while the public service machinery as the implementers of the laws and policies. A significant number of whom have difficulty understanding fully the functions of the system of government and functions of MPs. As such, many people do not see the value in an MP, Minister or Prime Minister who becomes an architect of legislative reform and policy or champions a cause to change approaches to governance and discharge of elected leadership responsibilities.

Sir Mekere Morauta, as Prime Minister, instituted legislative changes that stopped the destructive politicization of the superannuation sector and the disruptive changes to government partly through a Parliamentary term via the vote of no confidence provision in the Constitution. However, Sir Mekere lost government at the 2002 National Election as members of the public viewed him as serving sectarian interests, particularly corporate, and not a champion of the delivery of services directly to the common people. Looking back 18 years on, ordinary citizens now have their superannuation savings insulated from the encroaching hands of politicians and their henchmen. The electoral reforms instituted by Sir Mekere now sees leaders of political parties that score the highest number of wins in a national election are being called up by the Governor General to have the first chance at forming the next government.

I am pointing out the legislative reforms that Sir Mekere as prime minister instituted as an example of MPs performing optimally as legislators as opposed to the widely held view of the public as deliverers of services.

This is not to suggest that MPs do not have roles to play to ensure services are delivered in the districts, but they cannot be seen as the moneymen that fund the services and development projects. The MPs are supposed to be making decisions as dictated by the laws and policies in Parliament, National Executive Council, Provincial Assemblies and District Development Authorities. The public servants are then supposed to implement the decisions by way of provision of services or execution of a development project. The reality often is that many MPs tend to get involved directly in the implementation of the services and development projects by determining the contracts of projects or procurement of resources or the manner in which a service is delivered. (I talked about this at length in a previous article few weeks ago).

As it is now, the role of the MP as legislator foremost, is clouded by the demands of the electorate to be seen as the direct deliverer of services and implementer of development projects. In other words, the electorate expects the MP to be seen to be directly involved. The fact that this approach yields the potential of corrupt conduct hardly figures in the psyche of the people.

One thing the members of the public should and must do is educate themselves about the functions of the system of government PNG follows – that there is a clear role of Members of Parliament as legislators and public servants as implementers of the decisions made by the various bodies involving MPs.

Citizens must educate themselves that the MP is not a direct deliverer of services and needs of individuals, tribes and LLGs.

Without being fully conversant with the system of government that PNG follows and seeing an MP as somewhat of a Santa Claus figure is the basis for corrupt conduct. Citizens, do your part before accusing MPs and public servants of corruption and non-performance. You do the right thing first and demand MPs and public servants to follow you.

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