Way Forward for Kambuou

JOHN Pomoh Kambuou, OBE, likes to offer one comment while greeting each new minister to the Department of Community Development which governs sports administration.
“Since 1993, I have served as an adviser to a total of … (number) ministers of the government responsible for sport,” he tells them. “You are my number ...”
Following her recent appointment back to the Ministry of Community Development, Dame Carol Kidu was told she was his 17th.
As executive director and chief executive officer of the PNG Sports Foundation, Mr Kambuou has been adviser to ministers responsible for sports and the government for over 14 years.
He has been, along with the other John (Dawanicura), the most consistent face of sports administration for nearly two decades.
Despite the years dedicated to sports and sports administration, Mr Kambuou declares that the twilight years of his sports administration career have also been the most challenging.
It falls on him to implement the expanded role that the Way Forward Sports Policy requires.
The challenge requires the PNG Sports Foundation reaching out to each of the 89 districts of PNG to engage and encourage development of sports.
Further, his job entails using sports to spread awareness of and positive reaction to other issues such as gender, HIV/ AIDS, good governance, and crime.
Working with his board, he must set up and head a new organisational structure and staff it. The staff ceiling has doubled from a little over 40 to more than 90 under the new structure.
He must ensure his provincial and district officers are trained first, then he will charge them with the task of training others in the far reaches of their districts and communities.
He must establish links to those government and non-governmental agencies that can assist him in his task where his resources might be limited.
To look beyond mere development of sports to using sports as a tool for development is a noble enough goal but it is a daunting task because it requires big finance input and trained manpower.
To reach beyond the urban areas into the villages requires developing communication and transportation capacity which is currently not present.
He needs trained trainers, coaches and administrators who themselves need training.
Daunting indeed, but not insurmountable, this veteran administrator says.
“With the kind of political support and will that is there at present and the new impetus derived from the Way Forward Sports Policy and Strategic Plan 2008 to 2011 and the assistance offered by AusAID through the Sport For Development Initiative, the challenges can be overcome.
“The way ahead will be uphill in the short term but it is worth the walk for at the top success awaits PNG sports and the country as a whole.”
And that is the attitude – positive and facing up to challenges.
It has been a silent motto and his achievements are ample enough proof of that.
The Sport for Development Initiative is particularly challenging, as it requires dovetailing sports programmes right around the country to reflect the other aims of good and democratic governance, public accountability, gender sensitising, HIV/AIDS and law, order and justice.
A massive K9 million per year has been earmarked for the programme and overseeing the success of it will require far more imagination and management skills to gain acceptance while at the same time, maintaining the sporting community’s twin core aims to develop sporting excellence and sports for all.
Can Mr Kambuou do it?
Next February he will be two years shy of the magic 60 years mark, when by law he will be required to relinquish any public office he might be holding.
But that is two years away still.
There is a suggestion that perhaps he should be provided with an early exit as he is only acting in the position of executive director presently.
While there might be some justification in wanting a change at the head of the organisation right from the start, there is another equally justifiable case for his remaining in the job at least until next June from the way personality clashes have affected other important offices and laid to rest great initiatives in the past.
It is far more prudent and urgent to set up some fundamental tasks first whoever is in charge to set this new Way Forward on the road.
Among them is the job of establishing the double taxation deduction for contributions to the National Sports Trust Limited, for the establishment of the new structure for the PNG Sports Foundation and for a immediate survey of sporting facilities and the condition and ownership of them throughout the country.
Such a task requires the support of both top management and board presently and then as Mr Kambuou himself agrees – it will be time to part company.
Mr Kambuou was born on Feb 27, 1951. He hails from Lahan village on Manus. He is experienced in personnel management, marketing and sales, higher education, administration and sports administration.
He has spent 14 years in private sector in executive positions and 17 years in management positions in statutory bodies.
For his masters degree in education, he studied in Sussex University, United Kingdom, and has attended various educational institutions in Australia and the United States.
Mr Kambuou’s career in sports started in 1974 when he played hockey. He became a representative player and the code’s national president in 1978.
In 1979 he was named PNG team manager of the South Pacific Games in Fiji and has served in senior capacities in most international commitments after that until 1991 when as deputy chairman, he delivered PNG’s best performance yet at a South Pacific Games.
He joined the PNG Sports Commission as its executive director until it was dissolved and replaced last year by the PNG Sports Foundation.
Mr Kambuou is the PNGSF’s acting executive director.
In that capacity, he is also on the board of the PNG Sports Anti-Doping Organisation and has been asked by Dame Carol to assist with the National Narcotics Bureau which has been attached most recently to her department and in a number of other tasks.