PM’s challenge hypocritical

I REFER to the Prime Minister’s challenge to the TIPNG chairman (Dec 11).
There are records of names of corrupt leaders in Papua New Guinea. If you check the records of the judiciary (and Leadership Tribunals) some of these names are current Members of Parliament.
Some leaders we hope have learnt their lesson and are correcting their ways. Some leaders do not have their names on record but they are extremely clever in brokering corrupt deals and they know how to cover their tracks.
Some leaders use power and wealth upon lawmakers and law enforcers to facilitate corrupt activities.
Some leaders stay the course of justice on technicalities and continue to deal corruptly and claim their innocence, yet they have not been cleared by any competent authority.
Some leaders fail to declare their annual statements of income. They are equally corrupt as the other leaders who make any decision to benefit himself or herself with millions of kina.
There are different sizes and complexities of corruption. Big or small, it does not matter.
On the issue of political mandates, I’d say that individual mandates given to leaders cannot wholesomely be declared as honourable because political mandates can be assumed corruptly or by default and it is a fact that the rulers of any nation can assume control through corruptive means and be successful because they are intelligent and know how to use and manipulate people, information and situations.
In the area of fighting corruption in PNG, not all leaders led by the Prime Minister so far have led by example.
It is true yet hypocritical for the Prime Minister to challenge the TIPNG chairman Mike Manning (or anyone) to bring names of any corrupt leader to the appropriate authorities like the Ombudsman Commission.
And what have the Prime Minister and his Government done to the Ombudsman Commission since 2002?
By deceit and design, they have facilitated and pushed the amendment to the Ombudsman Commission laws to make leadership investigations into criminal investigations thereby prolonging investigation on leaders.
Resource allocation in the past have somewhat been calculative. Now, from a record K8 billion budget for 2008, the allocation for the Ombudsman Commission is sufficient from the viewpoint of the Government to cripple the work of the Ombudsmen.
Even if someone brings in names of the corrupt leaders to the Ombudsman Commission for investigation, the commission is severely limited in capacity and capability to provide timely services.
And apart from that, I suspect a worse scenario in the history of PNG that the Ombudsmen and a key political party in Government have compromised their distinctive and respective roles by delaying the referral of several senior members of the Government to the Public Prosecutor for prosecution.
This maybe a serious case of justice delayed.
My suspicion is not surprising when you count the related events including the budget allocation of 2008.
The suspicion I have must be cleared by the Prime Minister and his members of the Ombudsman Appointment Committee through an investigation because you are dealing with the major issue of fairness to the anxieties and the reputation of the past leaders, their families and supporters when the commission investigated and referred them to the Public Prosecutor for leadership misconduct charges.
This allegation of justice delayed impinges on the trust, integrity and the independence of the Ombudsman Commission, and what I further suspect might be a bigger agenda by which some elements of Government are trying to decommission the Ombudsman Commission of PNG.
Decommissioning totally or partly is the responsibility of the politicians and the people they represent, especially when consideration is given to the relevancy of the organisation since 1975.
The Government can exercise that responsibility above the table rather than using underground tactics, mischievous and disastrous methods to devalue and make the institution irrelevant and ineffective.

Peter Masi
Former Ombudsman