The leader who said NO to money

NATION

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA
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There was a Local Government Councillor of fine repute and outstanding works who in 1968 won the National Elections to enter the 2nd House of Assembly as Member for Jimi.
I visited this man once at his home at Bonga (said Bong-ah) just a stone’s throw away from the Kol District of Upper Jimi by the banks of the Walna River.
Years later another son of this place, by the name of James Kuru Kupul, would also be elected as Member, this time to the House of Parliament.
This elder went by the name Kol-yeh meaning literally the Man from Kol.
Now, this Kol-yeh went campaigning in 1968 throughout the rugged river hewen Jimi valley with nothing but his impressive presence, his record of council work and packets of salt which he distributed a packet to each house he stayed at.
When the election was over and the counting was done, Kol-yeh collected an astounding 13,000 votes, a record number that has not yet been beaten since.
Hearing of his impressive win, off he trotted the rough full day’s walk down to Tabibuga station where all government business was conducted by the resident Kiap in those days.
It is a fairly grueling walk, I know, so when he arrived at Tabibuga, Kol-yeh had had quite some time to mull over his future prospects.
“It troubled me very much,” he told me during our interview.
“My home was bush and lacking development.
Here I was, an uneducated bush boy getting elected to the House of Assembly. How would I bring development to my people?
“I knew how to do it as a councillor.
My people knew me as a councillor.
They could trust me as a councillor.
“As a member of the Haus of Assembly I did not know how to operate. I was afraid my people would not know me,” he said.
These words and his actions which follow in this conversation were soul searching and those of a bewildered elder caught in a whirlstorm of monumental change. As a fellow countryman, I understood and sympathised very much with Kol-yeh at the time.
The import and deeper wisdom conveyed never did dawn upon me until these past few months as I sat studying the provincial and local government system in the country. Then it hit me.
Let me complete my story first as it gives further meaning and context to what I have discovered from the wise words of this elder so many years after our meeting and so many years since his passing.
Upon arrival at Tabibuga district, Kol-yeh was duly congratulated, he was fairly well known as a councillor, and told he would be formerly declared.
Here I tell it as he told me: “I asked him (Kiap) – ‘what language do they speak in House of Assembly?’
“He told me – ‘Pisin and English?
“I told him – I can hardly talk Pisin and I cannot speak English.
“No worries about that. You are a Member now. You are big boss man.. You can bring you own Tanim Tok (interpreter).
You can speak in your tok ples (language).
“In the Haus of assembly?
“Yes, in the Haus of Assembly. You can tok ples with the queen if she comes. Your Tanim Tok will translate.”
Kol-yeh felt relieved with that exchange but then another line of inquiry came to his mind.
“Will my Tanim Tok be paid?
“Yes!
“Will I be paid?
“Yes. Very big money. You are a Member of the House of Assembly now. Now you want to be declared member of not?”
The Kiap was losing his patience.
Not a good sign.

Still Kol-yeh had to ask one more question: “Where will the money come from to build roads and bridges and Haus Sik for Jimi?
“The government. The government will pay for everything.”
Kol-yeh then told the Kiap: “ Sorry, I cannot accept this job. Because of my lack of education, two people will get paid. That money should go to the work of building roads, bridges and Haus Sik for Jimi. I cannot allow that.”
Whereupon he flatly refused the job, becoming perhaps the first man to do such a thing anywhere.
My memory is rusty now but I think the runner-up took the post but he was in turn taken down by malaria and a by-election in 1969 installed the Late Thomas Kavali who shot to fame along with Chimbu’s Iambake Okuk as stalwart leaders of the National Party who broke ranks with the highlands faction to join Somare’s pro-self government and Independence movement. And the rest is H…!
Kol-yeh’s sacrifice and the reasoning behind it must go down in the annals of political history as one of the finest and most selfless acts by any leader anywhere.
And it is that which comes to the fore in this continuing discussion on the second and third tier of government system in this country and the appalling lack of positive impact by them upon the lives and welfare of the people of Papua New Guinea now almost a half century after Independence.
Jimi valley remains today as Kol-yeh left it all those many years ago. The one road built by bare hands from Banz to
Tabibuga and Koinambe in the middle and lower Jimi and to Kol in the upper Jimi was organised by men like Kolyeh and Nants and Kumbako and Taia and Bare and Wenamb who I know personally and many more who were mere
councillors and village elders who had to organise their men and boys to work the road with axes, machetes, picks, crow bars and shovels and their women and girls to bring in the food to sustain the work crew across many day’s walk.
The men were beaten senseless if they were found not pulling their weight on the road building site.
I know because I tended the sores of an uncle called Walpa and chased flies and put cool leaves to cover his wounded back for many days and wondered in my child’s mind at this thing called government and that thing called development
and how they could bring so much pain to a poor people minding their own business and living so far away from anything.
But let’s not get side tracked here. The issue is leadership.
The import of what Kol-yeh did and what he said to me hits home now in a fundamental way.
Let me put it in question form: In our design of government, how close have we placed the leader to the people and vise versa? How well do the people know their leaders and vise versa?
In the answers to these questions lie a substantial part of the all elusive goods and services delivery curse that has so characterised our government system since inception.
It is because we have placed the law, the government, the leadership and the systems and processes of government at a great distance from the people.
Alone, away from the prying and bothersome but the awfully powerful surveillance of the public the temptation to deviate, to cut corners, to stretch the law, to drop the guard, to lower the bar and succumb to temptation pervades and
permeates thinking and action in government circles.
Good men and women turn corrupt overnight.
There is something powerful about being close to the people.
Good men like Kol-yeh knew this.
They lived and worked with the people. They promoted their people’s wishes and their successes and failures were measured and appreciated by their people.
The applause of their people was pay enough.
When separation threatened Kol-yeh resisted. He feared acting alone and away from his people.
He would and did refuse monetary gain for it was nothing if it did not deliver goods and services for his people.
England produced King Arthur and his knights of the round table with all their gallantry.
We produced the Man from Kol and Ambullua and Bubkile and Olgna and Karap and Tapiapokeal and Koinambe and all the other places he walked in that fine part of our country.

Next : The Local Level government’s place in the national scheme.