Marape not ready to lead

IF it was not for the Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister James Marape would be struggling to balance the numbers and keep his house of cards standing.
Ominous as it come, the coronavirus is an epidemic on a biblical scale, however it comes as the saving grace for this unpopular government to cling on power.
Marape came into office by fluke.
I have written separate articles of his uneventful odyssey from the straits of O’Neill’s Crown Plaza to Pruaitch’s Laguna and from the clutches of the devious “Angoram Manoeuvre” and to O’Neill back again.
As if by the whim of some mischievous celestial like Loki of the Norseman mythology, the member for Tari-Pori had a date with destiny.
Marape was at the right place at the right time for power to come.
In effect Marape never had any plan to become PM therefore he did not know what to do and still does not know how to realise his dreams.
Now you have a sheep at the head of a coyote pack.
The pack is hungry and the sheep had to find a way quickly to avoid becoming the food.
The coronavirus came just in time Marape desperately needed cohesion among his flagging ranks and disheartened coalition partners.
The coronavirus gave him that opportunity to reach out and amass resources as best he could to keep the numbers as in the saying “make hay (while the sun shines)”.
He sends his treasurer on a borrowing spree.
Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey comes back with buckets full of money in the name of stimulus package. Whom and what they are stimulating is not really known but what is so clear is the excess borrowing has exceeded K10 billion in just one year and exorbitant spending on hire cars and expensive consultants doesn’t translate to what is on the ground.
Security forces manning critical places such as our international borders go hungry and are leaving their posts in protest over unpaid allowances.
Or nurses going on nationwide strike for no personal protective equipment are glimpses of what is actually on the ground.
Now the police internal affairs directorate is made a scapegoat to some of the major budget blowouts.
Recently the government bulldozed an Act to insulate and legitimise it actions especially on how it disburses public money and resources in the name of combating the coronavirus.
Covid-19 is a global pandemic and poses imminent threat that deserves the kind of attention of a national emergency. But are we doing it right? A research initiated by the East Sepik government to determine the province encountered the coronavirus before the government’s testing and control programmes showed antibodies of Covid-19 found in four per cent in the people sampled and tested.
It means the Covid-19 passed over our population way before the government reacted.
Coupled with our climate – humidity/temperature – nutrition and accustomed unhygienic lifestyle – such as getting used to eating without washing hands – we have become immune and resilient to the coronavirus.
Taking advantage of a dire situation/national emergency is little less than impromptu and demeaning to say the least.

David Lepi