PNG among most corrupt countries

 PAPUA New Guinea is rated 150 out of 176 most corrupt countries in the world, according to the International Corruption Perspective Index.

Snr Insp David Suagu from the Correctional Services Training College said these alarming statistics highlighted the need for stakeholders to refocus themselves and come up with ways to reduce corruption.

He was speaking last Thursday in Kokopo during the closing of a two-day anti-fraud and corruption workshop for Kerevat CS officers.

Suagu and six other trainers conducted the training.

The workshop covered what corruption was like in PNG compared to the world and how CS officers could address corruption and one of core areas looked at was assessing individual code of ethics.

The theme of workshop was ‘Dealing with dilemmas and difficult people’.

The training discussed what corruption was like in PNG, where PNG was at in terms of corruption through the International Corruption Perspective Index .

“That in itself is alarming so we at CS are serious in tackling this and are therefore conducting regional workshops then will move into respective CS institutions around the country on how we could at least help in a very small way to reduce corruption.”

“What we are telling officers is that we cannot do it in a big way but taking one step at a time and doing away with some of the bad habits we have in work places.”

Kerevat jail commander Supt Kiddy Keko said the programme was timely and helped officers to understand in a more depth situation that corruption was a sickness that was eating the fabrics of our society and concerted effort was needed to address it.

“Being in the disciplined service, we need to be at forefront of that and strive hard so citizens see that are taking the lead in fighting corruption,” Keko said.