by KEVIN PAMBA
Voting in a policy vacuum in Madang Open
I voted in Ward Five of Madang Urban
Local Level Government Council in Madang Open electorate last
Tuesday, not knowing what precise policies I was voting for that
would benefit me as a resident of Madang town for almost eight
years.
I’m not talking about personal gain but how the policies of
candidates and their parties would translate to make life in
Madang town a tad better than how it has been.
This is a town that is seeing the continued arrival of investors
of varying shades and rural-urban drifters, a growing higher
education sector and a modest construction boom with some
businesses like Papindo expanding their operation.
This is also the so-called premier tourism destination of the
country dubbed “pearl of the Pacific”.
An influx of people and growth of investment comes with demands
for more services and exerts pressure on what is already available
and it is role of the political and administrative leadership to
expand services correspondingly.
The Madang town centre and its key infrastructure are on a
peninsula surrounded by sea with no room for expansion.
One main street, the Modilon Road links the town centre with the
rest of the residential areas, the hospital, the seat of the
provincial government and administration, the airport and other
infrastructure.
The present Madang town land boundary ends at Humade or the Finch
Road area – and from the coast to Humade, this is not a very large
stretch of land that the town sits on and as not room for
expansion.
There is an outstanding dispute over the existing Madang town land
with traditional owners against the State after the 99-year lease
taken by the colonial powers expired over 10 years ago.
With the land dispute, a contentious squatter settlement issue and
a divided political leadership (as recently highlighted by Prime
Minister Sir Michael Somare, an expansion and growth of Madang
town is not on the horizon
As a resident of Madang town, I expected to be convinced by the 44
Madang Open candidates and their parties about how they would help
improve the services and standing of Madang town as an urban
centre that is showing the potential of economic growth and social
development.
Instead, I walked to that polling booth to exercise my democratic
right, disillusioned by the sheer number of candidates, a majority
being independents, and no clear policies that spelt out how the
status quo in Madang town were to be improved.
I was particularly dismayed by the fact that majority of the 44
Madang Open Candidates were “independents”, which to me is a
description of convenience in PNG politics for a political
prostitute who is up for sale to the highest bidder during the
time of the formation of a new government or when votes for
important bills are on in Parliament.
Voters like me in Madang town begged to be informed about how the
colonial road system in the tourist and educational town would be
improved by the 44 candidates.
The main Modilon Road is already showing signs of its inability to
cope with increased traffic at peak hours.
The candidates starved the Madang town voters with any plans about
how the traffic problem on Modilon Road would be eased.
None of the 44 candidates spoke about the option of opening the
short-cut road to the airport via the causeway behind Gav Stoa
Settlement.
A road exists and all it needs is a bridge over the waterway
behind Gav Stoa settlement and gravelling and resealing.
This short-cut road will ease the traffic and facilitate for
vehicles coming into town from the airport and the north coast and
cut travel to time to the airport from the town centre.
No candidate spoke about the improvement of the public
infrastructure that is falling apart at the parks, the sea shore
and just about everywhere, apart from veiled references of
restoring Madang town its for-
mer self, whatever that was.
The important municipal role of Madang Urban Local Level
Government and its financial independence and viability was hardly
a policy agenda.
A growing town like Madang needs a vibrant, viable and financially
independent municipal authority that can play a pivotal role
between the government, the private sector and the citizenry to
ensure equitable urban development and provision of services.
There was hardly any mention of inviting the existing private
sector, NGOs and the many higher educational institutions as
partners with the political and administrative leadership to
enable a consensual planning and development of Madang town.
Unemployment and rural-urban drift was not even talked about in
any significant way to highlight how these two major national
concerns would be addressed at the Madang town level.
The Madang Open campaign agenda, particular in Madang urban was
dominated by silent campaign posters and very little public
rallies and information released to the public to decide on what
the candidates stood for to improve the town.
The electorate is dominantly rural in nature with Madang urban
making up about a third of the population.
Maybe that is why the candidates concentrated their efforts in the
‘bush’.
But still this is the provincial capital and that any future
Madang Open member is the political leader of an important town
and will be seen as that.
What happens in Madang town reflects on the Open member as much as
it does for the governor and his provincial government.
The above reflection of the election in Madang Open is to
highlight the absence of clearly-defined policies among the
candidates and their parties in PNG’s elections over the years –
that people vote individuals and not the policies and political
parties.
The huge number of “independents” simply reaffirms the personality
politics.
