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Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea - Speech 23 August 2006

FORGOING ETHICS IS NOT A WISE CHOICE FOR GOOD LEADERS, EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENTS, HARMONIOUS SOCIETIES AND PROSPEROUS NATIONS IN MELANESIA: A PERSPECTIVE FROM PNG.

A PAPER PRESENTED

BY

OMBUDSMAN PETER MASI – OCPNG

ON THE OCCASION OF THE

SAVENACA SIWATIBAU MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

SPONSORED BY TI NZ IN COLLABORATION WITH TIV AND OCPNG

Port Vila, Vanuatu – 23 August 2006

Introduction

Leaders in the public sector are positioned in the structures of governments to make decisions for the success or failure of nations in the political, social and economical well being of nation-states. Leaders are the most-talked about commodity and their performances come under scrutiny all the time. Subjects, citizens, leaders themselves, visitors into our countries, other governments in the region/world and foreign companies discuss and utilise the information (official and personal) on or about leaders. Any information (true and false or half of each) about leaders are public news items. The issues on leaders are passed around in market places, during meetings in villages, in sporting fields & other leisure activities, discussions in government offices, in peace negotiation forums, in learning institutions, on company premises, during fishing trips, at election times, whilst gardening, during family gatherings, at funerals, after church services, during functions, in court rooms, in international meetings and in the men-house (haus-boi i.e. in PNG) or at the nakamal, accompanied by kava.

It is worthwhile to talk about them – the Leaders; because they function as the heart beat of the nation. They set the tone for the nation to strive for excellence through the proper exercise of public mandates bestowed upon them. They are there to meet the hopes and the aspiration of the people, their followers or their employer. Individuals and groups sought to befriend Leaders because they hold the power and authority to bring societal and personal wealth to an individual and a community. It is a belief that Leaders are to be respected and not spoken up and out about or you’d meet the wrath from them. The discussions about our Leaders are about their traditional knowledge of customs, their upbringing, the achieved education, experiences of the job they do, their wealth and possessions (or the lack of), their strengths and weaknesses during major challenges and tests and their abilities to make things happen ( or not) in their assumed posts.

Conversationalists are either for or against a leader and sometimes from a neutral stand point depending upon the knowledge they have on a leader and whether he or she directly or indirectly is a beneficiary to the leader’s actions. When discussions venture into the moral and ethical behaviour of our Leaders their martial status and their moral standing our conversations are done in whispers… like you sometimes want to bite your tongue – it just does not come out… that is how we talk about our Leaders in Melanesia. We do not want to be the one (let the opponents do it) to bring this matter out about the leader in question. We say, in good time the leader will meet his or her fate.

The issue of ethical standards – an issue I will discuss shortly, of Leaders is to me the only and the highest pass-mark that is to be placed upon any Leader. Leaders in Melanesia both the old and the young are treading upon and nullifying the importance of ethical behaviour. Less consideration is given to the value of ethics when making both personal and public decisions. This is true in Papua New Guinea, for Vanuatu - I’d let you be the judge.

Forgoing ethics and expecting the people or the followers to accept and enjoy a leadership is really capitalising upon the silent and good nature of the Melanesian to keep quite over the issues of personal conduct of Leaders. To me forgoing ethics is a destructive invitation not only for the Leader upon himself or herself but for the constituents he/she represents, his/her followers, families, friends and the nation he/she serves not only for now but in the future and therefore I say it is not the way for Leaders to compromise ethics and it is certainly not a wise move if we in the region are going to benefit from quality leadership, effective governments, harmonious societies and prosperous nations.

Who are these Leaders?

Who are these leaders or who are those leaders we are talking about? In my line of work and during my visit here I want to talk about public officials – either elected or appointed. The officials in local level governments, provincial and national governments are those who carry a public responsibility and they are paid through the public purse. These are the leaders I want to talk about. The public look up to them to pursue their desires of an improved life and at the same time the public look up to them as examples in ethical and moral guidance.

Let us now touch on the topic of ethics.

Ethics – what do I mean and what do you know about ethics?

‘… the moral principles governing or influencing conduct’. Further what does moral mean? ‘Moral is concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour and the goodness or badness of human character’. It is a ‘psychological rather than physical or practical’. And what do we mean by principle? It is ‘a fundamental truth serving as the foundation for belief or action’. It is ‘a rule or belief governing one’s personal behaviour’

The Oxford Dictionary

In summary, ethics is the ability to distinguish between a right thing and a wrong thing to do, to see, to touch, to feel etc... To be able to do that one must do it from a mind with a set belief exercised and groomed over time and just know and do what is right and to not depend on the law, a priest, a pastor or a senior clan member to correct him or her.

Doubters of ethics

Ethical application to our lives is a difficult phenomenon personally and corporately. Ethical training is best provided from childhood upwards. We are Christians and ethical issues are much closer to our hearts, it is not foreign, it does not have a hollow ring to it nor should it be left for contemplation on Sabbath or a Sunday. We all must admit that there is a Higher Being who takes complete charge of all human affairs. Anyway that is my argument; let us now give chance to the other opinion from the doubters of ethics:

‘.. there are many who doubt that ethics can provide a solution to the kind of acute governance problems that give rise to scandals in government and business. Ethics is seen as too weak and too nice to be of real effect in what is seen as a tough, dirty and unprincipled world. Business and government give ethicists a very polite and respectful hearing. However, one suspects that ethicists are viewed like the Sunday school teachers in a brothel – naïve, totally ineffective and an embarrassment to those who want to get on with their business.’

‘It is seen as negative (telling people what they should not do), impractical (because they have to do it to get along, unenforceable (because it is seen as backed only by conscience), more likely to catch the innocent than the craftily guilty, purist, religiously based and a set of rules about individual conduct that do not take note of the ‘real world’.

End of quote. Preston, Samford & Connors

Encouraging Ethics and Fighting Corruption, ANU

To Christian Melanesia - PNG, Vanuatu or Solomon Islands, when Leaders sideline ethics in a private and public conduct and action, rest assured that, that leader has sidelined God’s allowance to him to live and progress!

Forgoing ethics is just a beginning of the troubles yet to come. One of them that I want to take time to emphasise is the selling of official mandates by politicians and public servants.

Snipping off Mandates till it is valueless

When a leader is elected or appointed into office he is a public official, engaged and mandated for the set time to deliver a public responsibility. He or she will perform the task allocated to him or her and it is up to the other party to renew his or her continual engagement. Selling of mandates is a growing problem and this trouble begins when leaders intentionally makes decisions that will not benefit the other party he or she agreed to work for. What has happened is the public official has been influenced by a private interest or an external pressure whilst making the decisions. He has in fact sold-off a piece of the public mandate. This is serious and many of us leaders do not realise the implications of such actions.

 Rural communities, disadvantaged urban communities, lawless behaviours and the prospect of self- aggrandizement are pressures and external threats which are taking a toll on properly considered and quality decisions from leaders. Succumbed with these pressures and to ease their burdens or to recklessly improve their lot without shame and regard for the sufferings of the public they trade-off a piece of their power and authority. They are directly selling –off the mandate that does not belong to them! The sacredness and the value of public mandates are now worthless in many government offices.

Problems start small don’t they? In this context when a leader first sells a piece of a mandate he or she does not own thus begins the journey of stealing of time and resources of people and state.

Voice of public conscience – who are they?

Decisions made by governments have negative or positive consequences on the public and the public mind scrutinises the actions of Leaders and it is essential that leaders allow the public to express themselves. The public must be educated to understand policies of government.

It primary is the responsibility of government to explain their policies and decisions however in this time and age the governments are silent about issues or do not provide the accurate account of affairs to the population. Now somebody must facilitate this between the public and government. And we know the best fit for this duty are the Media, the Churches, the unions and NGO’s like Transparency International. Many of these organisations are non-government. There are agencies of government who also facilitates the interactions between government and the public. One of them is the office of the Ombudsman and of-course in Vanuatu you do have an Ombudsman Office and some of you I am sure already know about their roles.

The Ombudsman and partners must provide the voice of public conscience to the government all the time. The voice of public conscience is to ensure that the actions of government/agents of governments are lawful, fair, transparent, accountable, and overall those decisions should enhance social and economic progress. The decisions must in the long term develop quality in leadership, a character of a people, build a nation, allow participation and consensus the Melanesian way.

I will now talk a little bit about the Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea – a major voice of public conscience in Papua New Guinea.

Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea

The Constitution; the Organic Law on the Duties and Responsibilities of Leaders (commonly known as the Leadership Code) and the Organic Law on the Ombudsman Commission establishes and gives power to the Ombudsman Commission. The general duty is to investigate misconduct allegations on Leaders and mal-administration charges on all government bodies.

Apart from these 2 major functions, The Commission has 10 other sub-si diary functions including Special Court References and Section 27(4) Direction (much like a court injunction).

-         Structure/staff. We are a 3-member Commission (Chief and 2 Ombudsmen with a six year term in office and our appointments are made by a bi-partisan Committee). This was how it was framed by our Constitutional Fathers taking into account the Melanesian concept of conflict resolution where there must be participation and consensus. We have a total of about 122 staff, with a population of 5.1 million who are spread across the country. At last count we have 832 languages and tribes

-         832 Customs, One Constitution with democratic ideals and a Christian Country. Not really an effective mix! I should know, but it is the love of my country that the Ombudsman Commission continue to strive onwards.

-         Statistics – The Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea processes 3 to 4 thousand complaints a year. Since 1975, the year of independence we have done close to 20 Organic Law On the Ombudsman Commission Reports and brought before the Public Prosecutor about 90 Leaders under the Leadership Code investigations.

-         Leadership Tribunals. The investigative work of the Ombudsman Commission stops when we refer a Leader to the Public Prosecutor. We become witnesses during tribunals. Success rate is over 90%.

-         The highest misconduct charges on Leaders continue to be misappropriation of public monies followed by Conflict of Interest.

-         Major and minor reports preparation and submission to Government Bodies and National Parliament in respect to administrative investigations arising out of complaints is a traditional role of an Ombudsman. Our record here is over shadowed by Leadership Code investigations.

No comparison please

Though we are Melanesian brothers and sisters and independent sovereign nation states, for me it is not a comparative tour but a experience sharing one. There is no "one size fit all’ sales gimmick but plainly stating our background and situations as they are. The Ombudsman Commission in Papua New Guinea desires to mould a standard in Leadership – we try and no matter our past record each week we still receive leadership complaints.

What makes leaders continue to go down the same road of misconduct – even with both eyes open? It has to be driven by an uncontrolled compulsion to do it because he or she has forgone the accepted ethical conduct!

Let me now conclude with this last topic on how any citizen can measure the performance of government.

How do you measure the performances of your Government?

What Transparency International does each year is to rank the governments of the world on the level of corruption. For 2006 Vanuatu has not being ranked whilst PNG has been and it is one of the bottom layer of countries. How TI does this is something I will not go into. But what I can say is any citizen can measure how a country performs.

Being in office for 6 years I believe I can measure the performances of our governments in the region in the following context:

·        Constitution and Laws in the country – whether there is compliance, that there is respect for the rule of law

·        Demarcation – Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary – whether politicians and public servants recognize and work it

·        The substances in National/Provincial Parliaments deliberations – whether less politics is played and more developmental issues discussed

·      Central Agency Administration – affordable, effective, efficient and experience service delivery

·      Provincial, District and Local level Government Administration – whether the decentralization concept is working and power is with the people

·      Independent State in court challenges – the rate of court challenges on all levels of elected governments and departments in the public service

·      Unions/NGO and State relationship – are there constant strikes by workers against employers

·      Government watch-dog institutions – effectiveness of them and actions taken upon them

·      Parliamentary Committee – are they effective

·      Use of quorums in meetings – is it being abused

·      Votes of no confidences – are the motives correct

·      Joint District and Provincial Budget Planning Committee – for PNG

·      Revenue generation and expenditure – how is the economy managed

·      Prices in essential items – are there costly

·      Government and Business relationship – is there partnership

·      Elections – are they conducted in order

·      Law and Justice systems are vibrant; enforcers do not abuse rights, enforces are held in check, justice is on time and is not denied

·      Order in Society – confidence and freedom to move around and express themselves.

·      Regional and International standing – prerequisite to investors

·      Quality of Leadership – those with morals

The Conclusion

I started with the topic on why Leaders should never forgo Ethics and the beginning of all troubles is when the elected and appointed leaders sell a public bestowed mandates – which they do not own, for a gain not connected to public benefit. In the middle of my talk I have briefly touched on the PNG perspective and I have just ended with how we all can measure our government’s performances. What more is there for me to say but to emphasize the seriousness of what governments can lead all its population into when mandates are sold out allow our people to suffer now and the years to come.

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