Leaders summit is the way forward for now
The National, Friday 14th of February, 2014
I WISH to congratulate Prime Minister Peter O’Neill for his people-oriented leadership demonstrated in unequivocal terms through the hosting of the first 2014 Leaders Summit.
This will go down down in history as an important event for our nation, as you will be the first prime minister to move the political and public service machinery out of their comfort zones to be scrutinised.
Your commitment to ensure that this becomes an annual event is highly commendable.
It is no longer talks but real action and that is an important legacy that you can leave behind for others to emulate in future.
I have been one of those main critics of the mismatch and lack of accountability of governments since independence in failing to tell the people of PNG the impacts of their record annual budgets.
Apart from being critical, I also highlighted the general struggle by the government to measure development impacts emanating from the budgets and attributed this to the general lack of cohesiveness in planning, monitoring and evaluation.
Good planning and budgeting was lacking because plans and budgets were not based on the real development issues on the ground.
This results in poor implementation and hence general feeling of lack of progress despite record annual budgets.
I also highlighted the need for strong political and bureaucratic ownership of plans as another important missing element which contributed to poor implementation over the years.
Because of lack of political, bureaucratic and overall public scrutiny of projects through an institutionalised PM&E process, politicians and bureaucrats seem to be only accountable to themselves other than the public.
This is manifested in the delivery of a string of substandard works and services throughout PNG, year in and year out.
We are grateful that some of these public concerns have been considered as manifested in the intent and commitments you made by hosting the leader’s summit this year and in years to come.
Papua New Guineans can now begin to look to the future with much hope.
Robert Lutulele
Brisbane