Fault people, not systems

On Wednesday, Feb 15, 2023 the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission launched a nationwide review into the form and system of Government adopted by Papua New Guinea at Independence.
Under review would be:

• THE current structure of the National Parliament;
• THE Election of the Prime Minister;
• THE system of Government; and
• THE different levels of Government in the country.

The review is timely. By 2025 PNG will celebrate 50 years of Independence.
But despite the time spent, PNG has not quite grown to maturity the system of government it adopted at Independence.
Much has been misconstrued and much else remains under-developed. Politics is very much fluid and unstable.
Political parties are little bands of like-minded individuals sheltering around particular individuals, often with money, but with little or no popular support around the country.
There are no philosophical or policy differences between these groups.
In such an environment politicians flit in and out of parties like bees around a hive, driven by their whims and mostly selling their allegiances for cash or projects.
Governments are changed at a moment’s notice as Members are prone to shift allegiances at a moment’s notice too.
Do we understand the philosophical underpinnings of the type of government we have adopted? Have we worked this system of government in the best way possible? Is a parliamentary democracy conducive to the cultural history and makeup of Melanesians.
There is a general feeling out there, supported by much evidence, that the government has failed the people in this country.
The evidence is stark in the many social and economic indicators so often cited.
Such a feeling of dissatisfaction will translate to a general desire for change to the structure and form of government in PNG today.
The question to ask at the start of any review into the governmental system is this: Is it the structure and the system of government that has failed or is it the people’s inability to make the system work that is at fault?
This must be the starting point of any inquiry because a system is only as good as the people’s ability to make it work.
A great deal of review and reforms need to be carried out into our character and behavioural patterns of the people.
Sometimes one gets the feeling that we are here trying to blame the spade, not the lazy digger, for the garden not having been planted. Papua New Guineans, as a people, are not great at making things work but they are champions in finding fault and apportioning blame.
The provincial government system has obviously failed. Parliament reviewed the system of government and promptly blamed the Organic Law on Provincial Governments and changed it once in 1995, tweaked it in 2014 with the introduction of another services delivery mechanism in the District Development Authority. Now PNG is back proposing yet another structure called Gradative Decentralisation which, upon the most cursory examination, will reveal it was contained in the original organic law all this time.
Thinking that the Education System was not working, PNG changed the Standards Based Education (SBE) system and introduced the Outcomes Based Education (OBE) curriculum. Two decades of working this taught has shown that SBE was the right model after all and PNG is back with it, having passed two generations through OBE.
Certain aspects or parts of a system or a law and policy may need to be tweaked from time to time to bring them up to date with technological developments such as the internet and changing circumstances such a global warming but by and large systems should not be drastically overhauled completely or replaced except under the most dire circumstances.
The human factor defeats the goal aimed at when one attempts to replace the familiar with an unfamiliar new system. The new system will have to be learnt in order to make it work. People will take time to learn and unlearn the experience of the old system. The confusion The time it takes will in the end appear to all as the new system having failed.
It is the human factor that is really the faulty mechanism.