PNG or the money PNG gives

PUBLIC service veteran Wep Kanawi suggested to those attending a political party convention in Port Moresby to ask public servants a searching question.
Do you love PNG or do you love the money PNG gives you?
Kanawi has had a colourful public service going to the very beginning when he and a handful of others were tasked to put together systems for the delivery of goods and services.
Public servant in his day proudly wore the badge of the country, worked with aim of taking over the jobs held by expatriates and simply loved PNG.
They were guided by four principles: They worked without fear or favour; implemented programmes and projects according to set plans and budgets; worked for the public good; and, were accountable to the whole-of-government and not just the department or agency they worked under.
With no available locally trained professionals to draw from to begin with, they went on a recruitment drive to source valuable human resource for both for the administrative positions besides teachers, health workers and agriculturalists.
From being head of the public service department or department of personnel management, he was moved to other departments including a stint as acting administrator for a province.
His last public service job was with the National Aids Council Secretariat.
He then retired to his Manus home and has been there over the past few years but called upon from time to time to share his wisdom and experience in systems of government.
And so he called, albeit as possible candidate in the coming election, to speak at the party convention.
And he did so in candid and forthright fashion.
For him and others who had been around during his time, the public service of today has come a long way in terms of its size, “sophistication” and in terms of expenditure.
Back then, there were a lesser number of public servants, a much lower annual budget to operate with, but a lot of pride in service to the country.
Today, there are more public servants who account for billions of kina in public expenditure but that unfortunately does not translate into efficient and effective delivery of services.
More does not necessarily mean more efficiency and effectiveness.
Besides, the sense of loyalty to serving the country first has diminished to a point where public servants are today a lot more worried about keeping their jobs than providing honest service Papua New Guinea.
Kanawi further pointed that from the 1970s to 1980s there was not a single court over a demotion or sacking in a court of law.
These days, however, it has become common practice
Something else pointed out by the veteran was that the public service has grown in size but the level of implementation of corporate plans by individual departments, corporations, commissions or secretariats has been minimal.
There have been many but implementing them has been quite difficult.
The main problem there, apparently is limited or no funding for the planned programmes and projects.
It is a good time now to stop and ask what went wrong with the public service and more importantly how to turn it around to serve Papua New Guineans better.
As we prepare for the 2022 general election, political party would do well to have in place plans that can enable the public service to return to the vision of the founding fathers whom people like Wep Kanawi had served under.