Leaders urged to take action

By LORRAINE JIMAL
PLANS and policies will remain unimplemented every year if leaders cannot appreciate the realities people are facing, an official says.
Southern Highlands planning and policy adviser Rim Kanea said policy making was about writing and planning but implementation remained the main obstacle.
“People are still walking long distances to get to the hospital and also to get a PMV to town and there is no change,” he said.
Kanea said despite policies being drawn up and plans laid, leaders needed to action them by making decision to fund them adequately.
He said Papua New Guinean bureaucracy had a habit of over-planning but lacked when it came to implementing the plans.
Kanea said if there were plans for infrastructure development, service delivery, development strategies and others, the money needed to be diverted for that purpose.
“We have the plans, but where do the funds go to?”
He said the money never seemed to be put to the plan or what it was allocated for which was frustrating and disappointing.
Kanea said there tended to be plans at every level of Government from ward to provincial but implementing them all never happened.
“We will not be able to develop our districts until somebody has the good sense to put the money to where it should be,” he said.
Kanea said while policy writing and planning were good tools for development, they were a waste of time if they could not be implemented. He said elected Parliament representatives tended to be out of touch with their constituents and needed to “go down to the village level” to “see the reality” as the people continued to struggle to access basic services.
“They (leaders) have to think about the needs of the people and make sense out of this, than the development will take place.”
Kanea said if nothing was done to change time, effort and resources would continue to be wasted.