Kidu: Politicians don’t build nations

By ABIGAIL APINA
MORE attention is given to politics and politicians and we tend to forget that nations are not built by politicians, Opposition leader Dame Carol Kidu said.
“Nations are not built by politician, never have been and never will be,” she said.
Speaking at the University of Natural Resources and Environment during its 15th graduation last Friday, she said nations were built on people and the people were represented by the three arms of government – the legislature, executive and judiciary.
She said they were represented by the business communities, civil societies, churches and communities.
Dame Carol said it was important for nation builders to listen more to the voice of the academia of Papua New Guinea rather than listening to “too much” researches and academia of other nation although they were vital for comparative researches.
She said it was important to identify the foundations that bind the country.
“Without doubt in my mind, it is the Constitution enacted in 1975 that binds us together as a nation,” she said.
She said the Constitution was “not written in stone” and could be changed from time to time.
But she said it should be done through proper processes of constitutional reforms.
“We should be concerned about processes because processes protect us,” she said.
She said leadership was about empowering people and not making people become dependent.
Dame Carol said good leadership and effective management put together “makes good governance”.
“Corruption increases when processes are ignored,” she said.