Someone must take the blame for the chaos

WE are a nation of finger pointers, of blame-passers.
Nobody wants to take the blame when things go wrong.
A leader is accused of corrupt activity and the first response is: Where is the evidence?
If evidence is provided they hide behind the legal principle “innocent until proven guilty” – by a court of law, no less.
This is the exact principle that the Leadership Code sought to deter when it stipulated in one of its provisions that a leader shall not, by any action or inaction and those by any person close to them, bring into disrepute the good name of the office he or she holds.
It is time that leaders and those who seek to stand for office understand this very important principle.
And here we must ask: Who is to blame for the madness that is occurring throughout the nation at present?
Sure we had a mid-term change of Government and a new Prime Minister.
Peter O’Neill was replaced in May 2019 by James Marape.
Sure we had a mid-term change of the PNG Electoral Commissioner. Patilias Gamato was replaced by Simon Sinai.
But the systems and processes remain the same.
In changing the heads, the systems were not torn up and replaced or dramatically changed.
The system ensures continuity, only the human person is changed.
Therefore, we can confidently say that the PNG Electoral Commission had five years to prepare for the 2022 National General Election and quite obviously it has not.
It is early days yet but the indications that we are getting from the field is that this will turn out to be one of the worst, if not the worst, election in PNG’s history.
And for that heads must roll.
This country just cannot sit idly by and watch things go wrong and time and time again blame the system for it.
In Japan a ferry boat overturned in rough seas and lives were lost.
The Prime Minister of that nation resigned because the accident happened under his watch.
In England, a minister would resign on the whiff of a scandal that involved his staff.
In decent societies everywhere individuals take the fall in order to salvage the good name of their offices and the systems and operations in place.
The logic is simple enough.
Systems are manmade. Systems are man-run.
When systems go wrong, there must be men or women at the end of it.
They must take the fall for the lapse that has sent the system out of kilter.
Every general election in PNG, in recent memory, has seen violence and election fraud get progressively worse.
If you do not believe the evidence of your own eyes, then see it through others’ eyes, such as those of election observers.
Time and again they have pointed to just a few things such as the common roll and voter and electoral official’s education as being areas that need improvement.
Both of those are manageable but what have successive administrations done about the anomalies pointed out?
The evidence is right before us this year.
Nobody did anything about it.
The first indication we got that all was not well with the preparation for the General Election 2022 were the postponements and deferrals.
There was excitement and actual money might have been committed to bring in the biometrics system developed in India.
But that was talk only and it fizzled out.
Worse than the chaos out in the countryside will be if we see nobody take the blame and the fall for what is happening.
That is because such an attitude will guarantee continued systems failure in future.