| Business |
Choosing the right priorities
POSITION, according to overseas real
estate agents, is everything.
The placement of two stories in The National yesterday gave an
ironic emphasis to that saying, and brought into stark contrast
the concerns of our leaders and those of our people.
One news item was headed “Parliament to resume today”, while the
adjoining report told a sad story: “No funds to assist affected
villagers”.
The first item noted that Parliament would resume yesterday; it
went on to detail some of the important business that would
concern the House.
That agenda included the extension of the State of Emergency in
the Southern Highlands, a multi-million kina exercise originally
set to lapse tomorrow.
Included in the major items was the expected introduction of a
K700 million supplementary budget.
Both matters are of obvious importance, and this is the final
sitting of the current Parliament before the general elections.
Up to that point, the item was an indication of the expected
business of the House.
But then came a paragraph or two that noted that Parliament at its
last session had failed to muster the required 72 votes to extend
the State of Emergency, and that it requires an absolute majority
to do so.
The report added that during the last session, there were
continuous adjournments due to an on-going lack of a quorum.
Sources close to the Government were reported as saying that “it
would take a miracle to pass some of the major constitutional
bills as most MPs were now concentrating on their electorates”.
The PNG public has become so accustomed to this level of
performance in the months preceding an election that the report is
highly unlikely to have created even a ripple.
The Opposition leader, seeking to make as much mileage as possible
out of the Government’s chronic inability to achieve a quorum in
the House, was quoted as saying that the Opposition “would carry
out its normal business of addressing what was important to PNG”.
Mr O’Neill noted the Julian Moti affair and the Sepik Highway
Trust Account as matters “of national interest that had to be
brought into the limelight”.
That commendable aim seems unlikely to take place if Parliament is
forced to rise because of the repeated absence of a quorum.
If PNG was a wealthy developed nation with hundreds of years of
democratic rule to its credit, these apathetic Members might
matter less, although few nations could survive very long without
commitment on the part of their leaders.
But as a developing country, the performance of our Parliament is
crucial to our future.
Failure to consider and pass legislation put before the House, and
the extensive backlog of Bills and amendments, shackles the
nation’s progress.
What then of the second story, the report alleging that no funds
are available to assist villagers, who need urgent food and
medical supplies?
The people have been affected by a so far unidentified disease
that has reportedly decimated the pig population of the area, and
allegedly been responsible for the deaths of three women.
These are the unfortunate people of Mount Bosavi in a remote
corner of the Southern Highlands province; air transport is their
only means of access.
But on this occasion it is not their distance from administrative
headquarters that could savagely affect them — it’s that old
familiar phrase “no funds”.
According to the acting provincial administrator, “a cheque of K10
million in special support grants released last week to the
administration was later dishonoured by the Finance Department
without any explanation, effectively stalling all contingency
funding from disaster relief operations”.
The administrator lashed out at those responsible for ordering the
cheque withdrawn, but that is scarcely the main issue.
How is it possible for the Members of Parliament to so blatantly
ignore the needs of the nation by addressing their own survival at
the polls before all else?
Which is the more important group of people — the politicians,
many of whom have performed poorly during the past Parliament, or
the forgotten people of Mount Bosavi faced with a potential
disaster?
Our country is too often crucified by our inability to effectively
prioritise.
And as always, it is the voiceless rural majority that suffers.
 
|
