Let’s hope the job gets done

THE eagerly awaited appointments to the new cabinet have finally been announced putting an end to days of speculation, fake news and much interest from the voters.
With these new appointments comes a lot of hope that these ministers will be better than the previous ones.
Some are new and some have surprisingly remained the same.
The health minister, who is actually a doctor, is one to get excited about – Dr Lino Tom has delivered significant improvements in his previous roles.
While our country cries out for better health services and our service providers scream for better support from the Health Department, we hope Tom can start to fix the deep problems that are festering in the health sector.
Many have failed before so let’s hope he is the man for the job.
Minister Justin Tkatchenko is in charge of foreign affairs.
This gives hope that our representation to foreign countries can improve our reputation.
After a disgraceful election campaign full of embarrassment, we hope he is a man who makes things happen.
He has in his electorate.
Perhaps he can start to make it easier for PNG people to travel to foreign lands.
The Member for Madang was given Immigration and Labour.
This is one of our most ineffective and inefficient departments.
Let’s hope he can start to help fix this area for the good of PNG.
Yet there are always as many questions as there are good things.
Our State-owned enterprises are a disgrace with the worst delivery of services in our almost 47 years.
Yet the same minister remains raising questions as to why.
We know he is a power broker and leader of his party, but there must be a reason he was given this portfolio.
And it can’t be for good performance.
We had hoped we would see someone new who would make improvements. We now have a minister for agriculture, a minister for coffee, minister for livestock and a minister for oil palm.
What was one ministry is now four.
This is an important area for our country but will these ministers have enough work?
And does this mean we will have more public servants filling offices in Waigani to support them?
We hope not.
With the massive cost of public service, how will we look to make government more efficient?
These ministers now have this challenge.
We hope they are up to it.
Every new cabinet brings new hope.
We hope that these ministers know what serving the people means.
We hope that they know what to do to actually make a difference.
We hope that in five years our country is better off in the areas they are responsible to improve.
And we hope the PM doesn’t change his mind every six months and reshuffle ministers.
If a minister isn’t performing, move him out.
But don’t change these ministers for the next five years and we hope we will be better for it.

Hopeful Citizen
NCD