Decentralisation and autonomy Part 1: The Genesis

NATION

As a lead up to the 50th anniversary of Independence in 2025, I have begun, with my paper, The National, a series on governance and the government system adopted for PNG. We must examine the way we have come in order that we plot the next 50 better.
I began these casual conversations starting with the Provincial Government system as I felt that was the government that was supposed to be closest to the people. I hope to attract many more people to this conversation in the coming months.
Fortuitously, the National Research Institute ran a two-day national conference on Decentralisation on Feb 16 and 17. Presentations and contributions at the conference were most informative.
We shall run over the next few issues, with permission, some presentations, summaries of papers, excerpts and snatches of conversations at the conference. We thank the NRI and Dr Thomas Webster for their support and permission to do this. We begin this week with the keynote address by Dr John Momis, the ‘Father of Decentralisation’ who as Deputy Chairman of the Constitution Planning Committee, gave PNG its Constitution and its Provincial Government system.
I have always admired this elder statesman, his unwavering support for decentralisation and his equally strong commitment to good governance and principled conduct. He has covered the subject with absolute distinction and clarity.
All who have a passing interest in history or governance should follow Dr Momis’ complete presentation across the next three issues.
He, more than anyone, knows this subject and he tells it very well. – Frank Senge Kolma

By JOHN L MOMIS
IT is almost 50 years now since the establishment by the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) House of Assembly of the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC).
From well before 1972, I was deeply interested in issues about empowering of people to participate in government decision-making about matters of importance to the people.
Much of that interest developed through being educated about social justice issues through my training to become a Catholic priest. That training helped me to critically evaluate the impacts of the imposition by the Australian colonial government of highly centralised control of the TPNG.
Through the work of the CPC, centralised political and administrative control was dismantled in a very short time, but not without serious political conflict, in large part because politicians and senior public servants resisted decentralisation. But beginning from 1974, a system of decentralised political and administrative governance through elected provincial governments was established in a series of reforms, beginning in Bougainville.
Constitutional entrenchment of the new system was not achieved until December 1976, over 15 months after independence, and only through political conflict.
Since 1976, I have remained deeply involved in observing, debating, and involvement in decentralisation policy-making in PNG. This has included many years as minister for decentralisation, overseeing the implementation and operation of the decentralised provincial government system.
Throughout the early to mid-1990s, together with my friends and colleagues, John Kaputin and the late Bernard Narokobi, I was a strident critic of the proposed dismantling of the elected provincial governments, and the imposition of a new form of highly centralised governance established in two main stages, the first in 1995, when power was given to the regional MPs to head appointed provincial governments. At the same time, Open MPs were given limited authority over the distribution of funding in their electorates, from then defined as the districts in each province.
Over subsequent years, Open MPs gained much more control of districts, culminating in the establishing in 2014 of the District Development Authorities, which are of course headed by Open electorate MPs.
From the late 1990s, as the peace process in Bougainville developed, I became a key Bougainville leader in the negotiation of the first serious example of high autonomy in PNG. I was one of the joint leaders of the Bougainville negotiating team which in August 2001 reached agreement with PNG on constitutional change giving Bougainville very high autonomy for 10 to 15 years, followed by a referendum on independence.
So, I have been privileged to be at the centre of many of the key stages in public debate and policy making about decentralisation and autonomy in PNG. I want to draw on that experience today. I will focus first on the reasons for adoption of the original decentralisation policy in the 1970s, and why the concentration of subnational political power in a few hands since 1995 needs to be opposed for much the same reasons that centralised colonial control needed to be opposed in the 1970s.
I will also comment briefly, but very critically, on the constant, and still current, demands for more autonomy for various parts of PNG. I shall also comment critically on the commonly advanced view that the decline in public sector service delivery since independence has been a result of decentralisation. In my view declines in service delivery have little relationship to the various changes in decentralisation policy.
Origins of Decentralisation Policy
I grew up in Buin, in the south of Bougainville, and in 1969, during a year away from Catholic seminary training as a priest, I taught at the Catholic high school in central Bougainville, close to where the giant Panguna copper and gold mine was being established by Conzinc Riotinto Australia (CRA). In January 1970, I was ordained a priest in Bougainville, and became Catholic Education Secretary.
In the process of these activities, I learned much about the concerns and aspirations of Bougainville. Then in 1972, a number of Bougainville leaders approached the Bishop of Bougainville, asking him to support my being elected to the then colonial House of Assembly as regional member, to represent the views of ordinary Bougainvilleans.
Surprisingly, given widespread Church attitudes to involvement of clergy in politics, the Bishop agreed, and I was elected with an overwhelming majority in mid-1972.
The people of Bougainville sent me to parliament with an agenda. They were so angered by the ongoing process of marginalisation and alienation effected by the then policies of the Australian administration and the huge multinational company CRA that many wanted to secede, for Bougainville to become independent.Revenue from Bougainville copra and cocoa had contributed to the national economy long before the huge revenues from the Panguna Mine started filling the national government’s coffers from 1972. The relatively well-educated Bougainville population contributed a significant number of senior officers in the colonial police and public service.
Despite such contributions Bougainvilleans had felt ignored by the colonial government, especially in comparison with development being promoted in many other districts.
And quite apart from their disappointment with the authorities, many Bougainvilleans felt ethnically more akin to the people of the neighbouring Solomon Islands.
The way the Australian administration collaborated with CRA to railroad through their ideas and policies on mining and related activities further confirmed the people’s fear that their future livelihood was under threat of foreign economic and political/ideological incursion.
Furthermore, the people were aware of many powerful individuals and institutions standing quietly by while the government dismally failed in its duty to support the people, and particularly the resource owners, in their struggle to secure an equitable deal.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church on Bougainville was suspected of – and by some even blamed -for – stirring up popular opposition to the company and the government.
In fact, the Bishop of Bougainville and some of his priests understood the deep concerns of Bougainville landowners impacted by mine development, and publicly explained the concerns of the people. This was unacceptable to senior officials in the colonial regime.
As a priest I took a plunge into the abyss of human affairs, finding myself in the midst of the people in central Bougainville as they experienced powerlessness in the face of foreign ideological confrontation imposed by a central government over which they had no real influence. It was this experience that remained uppermost in my mind when the people of Bougainville elected me to represent, protect and promote their welfare in parliament.
And this experience drew me to the conclusion that the best way of serving the people was by empowering them. While it is good to persuade government to distribute goods and services equitably throughout the country, I maintain it is more important to pressure them to empower the people by providing equitable access to political power.
For when people are so empowered, they can become active agents of change and development. When the power that distributes goods and services is monopolised at the centre, as it was in Konedobu under the Australian administration, people become vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by those who have excessive political power.
Why did PNG decentralise in the 1970s?
In mid-1972, the newly elected coalition government led by Michael Somare – the first TPNG government to be headed by a Papua New Guinean – set up the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC). The CPC was charged with the responsibility of formulating the country’s constitution prior to independence from Australia.
As newly elected regional member for Bougainville, I was made deputy chair of the CPC, but as it was understood the chair (Somare) would not be an active member, I became de facto chair.
At the time, the new government was well aware of long-standing and deeply felt demands of Bougainvilleans for independence and for substantial autonomy coming from East New Britain, but appeared to give them little recognition. But it did include ‘central-regional-local government relations and district administration in the terms of references it gave to the CPC.
Aware of the seriousness of the anti-government feeling on the ground in Bougainville, I proposed to Somare the setting-up of a political committee in Bougainville to look into the situation and to explore the possibility of substantial autonomy for what was then Bougainville District as an alternative to independence. I suggested that outspoken former student leader, Leo Hannett coordinate the work of the committee.
The Chief Minister liked the idea, and the Bougainville Special Political Committee (BSPC) was established, and Hannett made Somare’s special advisor on Bougainville. For the time being, these developments eased tensions.
A broadly representative BSPC was soon established and consulted widely in Bougainville about Bougainville’s political future. It helped generate consensus about significant autonomy as an alternative to secession. But tensions soon developed again, as was evident when Somare sacked Hannett after he publicly criticised the two Bougainville ministers (Paul Lapun and Donatus Mola) for failing to support the BSPC proposal for the establishment of a Bougainville District Government as an alternative to independence.
At the same time as these developments were occurring in Bougainville, the CPC was developing its proposals for the constitution, including for subnational government. Of course, it was influenced by what was happening in Bougainville and East New Britain. But the proposals it eventually developed for decentralisation took account of far more than that.
The CPC included members of both sides of the House of Assembly. CPC members toured the country, engaging comprehensively with people, seeking their views on the content of the new Constitution. In order to preserve and cultivate the diversity of the nation, and, at the same time, forge a union of the groups, the CPC recommended a system of decentralised government, with the then colonial administrative districts being symbolically renamed, as provinces.
Elected provincial governments would be established in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity – that the central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level. Such arrangements both suited the diverse nature of PNG, and were in line with the wishes of the people.
Of all the suggestions received during the extensive CPC public consultations, the proposals for district governments (provincial governments) were the strongest and most universal.
The CPC decided that to create a united country out of PNG’s conglomeration of disparate peoples, it must reject uniformity and regimentation, which would stifle the rich diversity of cultures and languages inherent in the country.
The CPC firmly believed that the people’s participation in governments at the provincial level would inculcate in their minds a sense of real ownership of government, which would be a powerful incentive for national self-reliance and integrity. It would also result in provincial policies that would respond to the particular needs of the people of each province.
On the other hand, recognising that there were very different levels of interest in and readiness for provincial governments in different provinces, the CPC strongly recommended that decentralisation be implemented gradually, in stages, taking account of differing levels of preparedness in different parts of the country.
In PNG, as elsewhere, it is important to empower the people by way of education and training and by decentralisation of political/governmental power and responsibility, so that they become active agents of change and development, not passive recipients of benefits/goods and services.
Participation is an essential element in the development of the whole person, who is both the subject and the object of development and governance.
In my view, the model of decentralisation as envisaged by the CPC was suitable for such a highly diversified country as PNG.
Unfortunately, due to a total lack of ideological commitment, which was the product of opposition to change from both national government politicians and senior bureaucrats happy with the centralisation of power they inherited from the colonial masta, decentralisation was never fully accepted and implemented Many leaders then, in the 1970s, and still today, think that it is wrong to devolve political power to the PNG provinces, and that we need only a strong centralised government, uniform for the whole country, like the colonial regime. It should be deigned to effectively deliver goods and services without the need for representative subnational political bodies.
There are several points that make that view inappropriate for PNG.
One point is that the views contradict the principles of self-determination and self-reliance. Those important principles motivated many of us to call for PNG to gain political independence from Australia. We did that despite being aware that the TPNG was not adequately prepared, and despite the fact that the Australians were certainly better in the business of government and administration than we were. It was not on the basis of our professional skills and capability that the decision was made for this nation to become independent – it was the vision of a prosperous democratic nation, that, despite our many shortcomings at the time, drove our leaders to seek independence in line with the principle of self-determination. The leaders and people of PNG were prepared to risk everything because of the important value of self-determination inherent in the dignity of the human person. Those same principles remain just as important today to people at the provincial level
The second point about what is wrong with that view is that it fails to take account of the great diversity of our nation, and the need for different policies and programmes in different areas to meet differing needs.
The third point is that it is a view that assumes that effective delivery of services can only occur under highly centralised administrative arrangements. In fact, as I will discuss later, the problems PNG has with declining delivery of services since independence has very little to do with decentralisation.
Next: Decentralisation and the National Goals and Directive Principles