Where have all the good plans gone?

In three days PNG celebrates 48 years of Independence.
In two years it will be 50.
A further five years will see it arrive at 2030, the year when the national is to become the “richest, Christian Black nation” on the earth as plotted by Prime Minister James Marape.
Marape anticipates growing the economy to K200 billion GDP mark, doubling today’s K10 billion.
His International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru mentioned that date once in 2016 when he launched the Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) sector policy and Master Plan, predicting boldly that by 30,000 or so SMEs would have grown to 500,000.
Two decades from 2030, PNG will arrive at 2050 now at the ripe age of 75.
In 2050, PNG is supposed to arrive at developed nation status where its populace is healthy, wealthy and living in an harmonious relationship with one another. That is the rich scenario painted in the Vision 2050, released in 2008 under the Somare government by then deputy prime minister Sir Puka Temu, who is yet in Parliament as Abau MP.
Somare gave us the five point National Goals and Directive Principles in the preamble to the Constitution and the Eight-point Development Plan at Self Government and Independence.
So different Prime Ministers across four decades have each given PNG these goals to look forward to and work towards.
Each annual budget, national public expenditure plan, the medium term development plan, the public investment plans, the five year corporate plans, the strategic programmes and national visions and missions have been colourful and artful, each striving to outdo the other in depth and breadth.
Soon departments and district development authorities were producing five year corporate plans, each aligned to the national plans.
None of these plans are off the mark, all within the realm of the possible, and all of them startlingly rich in content but history shows no discernible achievement of many of these plans and strategies.
Perhaps we should employ a time-worn metaphor here to better understand the underlying cause of this dilemma: ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’
PNG’s plans have been on the roll in an ever shifting political landscape where no government has held power for a full term in ten Parliaments except twice – 2002- 2007-2011 (Somare) and 2012-2017-2019 (O’Neill).
In such an ever shifting political environment, no plan, however good it might be, can find ready acceptance or gain traction.
A policy will need to be developed into a set of programs across several divisions of a department and often be crosscutting several departments and agencies.
It will need revising of existing programs and reshuffling of teams.
Mobilisation of manpower and resources, acquisition of land which is itself a time and money eating exercise, will take many months.
A policy or programme might be broached in one year but the funding for it is factored in the next year’s budget.
Therefore, a full 12 months is needed for any program to be fully set up and running and another 12 to see start up. A full four to five years is required for a programme to come to fruition. That is the underlying philosophy behind choosing five years as the full term of a Parliament. It is the minimum time required to allow one government to plan, develop and deliver on its policies and programmes.
Since most governments in PNG have changed below 30 months, there just wasn’t time to see any policy or program come to full flower and produce results. All efforts, including financial commitments, have been a waste and the desolation we have inherited is the inevitable and disheartening outcome of policies and programs that were aborted or still born.
Where a government has survived a full term the results have been startlingly different and positive.
Where PNG has failed is implementation, translating the plans into practical reality.
And after four decades of, it we have to ask ourselves: Can we do it at all?