PAUL, a Christian writer who contributes 13 letters to the New Testament, says “money is the root of all evil”.
If money can corrupt, then it is easy for people dealing with money to become corrupted.
Since politicians and senior bureaucrats deal with large amounts of public money, they are often labelled as the most corrupt people.
Thus, the late Sir Buri Kidu was right in saying that “if we arrest leaders who are corrupt, there will be no one left to run the country”.
The root of all the maladies in the civil service arises because people there have cultivated an insatiable greed for money. Thus, misappropriation of public fund is also prevalent among public servants, beginning with the boss right down to the tea-boy in the office.
The reason why civil servants in the pre-independence days were able to perform exceptionally well was that this group cultivated a different set of values to that of our current public servants.
Last week, we discussed six rampant categories of non-professional conduct in public office, namely incompetence, politics, conflict of interest, domestication, co-ethnic favouritism, and insubordination.
Though these categories are concepts, the real expression of misconduct in office can be found in the acts of misappropriation of state assets and funds.
Misappropriation, a generic term, would involve many meanings and nuances. Other words used to convey to same idea would be misuse, embezzlement or theft of public money.
Though misappropriation always refers to funds, we should not forget that it also covers state properties. Below, we shall deal with some areas of misappropriation.
Forgery refers to cheating in order to get money for purposes other than what was intended for in the budget allocation.
It is very common in both national and provincial departments where money spent is never anticipated in the planned budget.
The important issue is to get the budget approved by the Finance Department. After that, one can do what one wants with the money. Indeed the budget never reflects the actual spending of money in state institutions.
The transfer of votes is an action where public money disappears.
Money is either transferred to cater for ad hoc or contingency purposes. Money is transferred from one division to another.
The transfer is done usually for two reasons. First, the transfer is done to cater for some urgent business, and the second obvious reason is to cheat and steal.
Some year ago, Simbu Holdings, a business arm of the Simbu provincial government transferred substantial amounts of money into the Agriculture Division for a ghost project. To my knowledge the money was never reimbursed to Simbu Holdings.
There are also cunning ways of transferring funds. In some instances, a project or initiative will be labelled as “urgent” and money from the general account is appropriated. Later, the project is aborted for various reasons and the allocation disappears into private accounts.
The so-called bogus claims are so prevalent within and among public servants themselves.
For instance, an acting secretary has approved more than K500,000 for himself and although the minister has promised to look into the matter, nothing seems to have been done.
If a big boss of a department can claim such as astronomical amount for himself, what about those people in the rank and file?
Using position of authority for selfish gain is corruption. Thus, forgery among public servants can affect efficiency and effectiveness because money needed for implementing government policies and services delivery is consumed by selfish people in the system.
Following closely from forgery is an act called profiteering which means making money out of services rendered to the public.
Public servants are paid to do a job but some demand payment.
Government services sometimes do not reach the people because most people do not have the money to pay the extra charge.
In a recent incident, I had to assist the police with K100 to bring someone to justice. If I did not pay, the police would not have attended to the crime.
There are many people out there who have had to pay government officers to have government services delivered to them.
Recently, it was disclosed that K50 million was used to pay for land and accessory payments along the Simbu section of the Okuk highway in the recent road rehabilitation.
Along with money, state property evaluators were given beer and women to forge financial claims from the state that contributes to the amount disclosed above.
It is common knowledge that they will get their “commission”, a word which is used as a synonym for profiteering. In this instance, profiteering would skyrocket into hundreds of thousands or even a few millions, comparing with the amount given above.
Profiteering is something that the Government has to look into very seriously.
Most of the middle and low-income earning public servants are double-charging for their service.
They are taking money from both the State and the simple people.
The lack of accountability can be a cover-up of both fraud and profiteering by public servants.
For instance, the gross mismanagement of the University of Goroka, and the reason that led to the investigation and restructure was that funds had not been acquitted for since the institution’s inception some 10 years ago.
Misappropriation is common among public servants and mechanisms must be devised to curtail this evil.
Misappropriation is depriving the people of development, because the funds are diverted and deviated.
The breakdown in rural infrastructure, lack of maintenance of government stations, and generally the lack of development is a consequence of widespread misappropriation by public servants.