Higher standard of leadership lacking

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday April 21st, 2016

 LET me make it loud and clear to our beloved members of the Parliament that the people of PNG no longer have trust, faith and confidence in you. 

It does not matter which side you belong to. 

Your standard of leadership has dropped. Your collective and individuals conducts is a total disgrace to the nation.

You may take advantage of the uneducated and illiterate majority who can easily be manipulated and fooled with sweet talks and few acts but note that we the few enlightened ones, the true patriots of this country, before God Almighty, are alarmed to witness the dramatic drop in the standard of leadership displayed by you, our elected leaders.

Especially in a democratic society and more so of a Christian country, elected politicians are supposed to display and observe higher moral and ethical standards. You are supposed to be at all times vigilant to take responsibility and clear your name in scandals and allegations and to prove your innocence without further delay.

Instead you have become cheap liars. Extramarital affairs have become your norm. Your wives suffer silently as you go on looking for younger ones. 

When you take on a project the first question that comes to your mind, is what is in there for me and or my supporters? Even the delivery of services has political connotations. Projects which are supposed to cost less are undertaken at exorbitant price. 

You make a mockery of the people’s courts by bringing in for deliberation unmeritorious issues with your crooked lawyers.

Our elected members who are supposed to be honourable members have joyfully joined hands with criminals in singing in one accord the phrase “innocent until proven guilty”. 

It is not for our leaders to cling onto this constitutional phrase. This was intended to protect dangerous criminals from judicial bias in court proceedings. 

In your hunger for power, you have compromised the standard. 

You sing, “prove me wrong”. This constitutional provision was never meant to be abused this way.

If you all were to uphold the standard of true leadership, stepping aside and promptly clearing your name has been the worldwide standard since democracy was born. 

Faithfulness to your wives is the way forward and honesty is supposed to be your indispensable virtue.  

We are concerned that bad precedents have been set by successive governments. Once a bad precedent is set and people cry foul over it there is a change in government. But the new governments appear to be furthering the very thing that they promised to change.

It is our prayer that our leaders will sooner come to their senses and realise that what they do as our elected members has inevitable ripple effects. 

This generation is responsible for the next and so forth. In fact that is the way of nature. 

So our question is, “what kind of standard are you setting for the future leaders to follow?”

 

Emmanuel Isaac

Port Moresby