NATIONAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD LIAISE DIRECTLY WITH THE LOCAL LEVEL GOVERNMENTS It’s high time the National Government should liaise directly with the Local Level Governments (LLGs) when formulating new policies, thus by-passing the provincial and district levels of governments and administrations. National government formulating new policies in parallel with the local authorities (LLGs) is the most efficient and effective way to implement these new policies in the best interest of the rural majority because Papua New Guinea is comprised of several hundred micro-societies with distinctive cultures and languages. The national government’s direct link with the local level governments aims to accommodate this vast diversity. For almost three consecutive decades, many good policies being formulated by the national government did not have an effect and impact at the village level. Thus, the vast majority, 85% plus people living in the far remote and rural settings of this country did not feel the full power and presence of a unitary and democratic government in place. This ordinance of national government being dealing directly with LLGs extends the powers of local government which include: the provision, maintenance and management of roads and bridges, aid posts, ambulance services and public latrines, markets, water, light and power sup-plies, agricultural, pastoral, horticultural and forestry industries, airstrips, bus services, and other most needed basic goods and services. A ‘Pilot Study of Provincial and District Levels of Government in Papua New Guinea’ conducted in 2004-2005 by researchers from Divine Word University, the National Research Institute of PNG and the Australian National University in seven of the 20 Provinces (that is excluding Hela and Jiwaka) pointed to variations in performance across the country and to recurring problems of funding, infrastructure, human resources and the roles played by Provincial and District Levels of Government (May, Ron 2005; Haley 2005). In a number of cases, the study found that the highlighted sub levels of governments were ineffective, ‘if indeed they met at all’! In May 2005 Minister Barter was similarly critical of the abuse of LLG funding, estimating that perhaps 80–85 per cent was “either ‘wasted’ or not used for its intended purpose, through lack of proper planning or corruption” (in May, RJ, 2005, p. 2). He was critical also of the fact that more than half the provincial administrators and district administrators were ‘political’ appointees who often had no experience of running a province or a local-level government. Philip Moya (2007, p.166), himself a former senior provincial administrator in PNG described how provincial governments had “hijacked the due processes of planning, budgeting, accounting and reporting ... and derailed the proper constituted procedures and mechanisms to ensure that all stakeholders participate. The losers (Moya continued) have been the vast majority of the population. Good road networks, communications, health facilities, and goods and services have been denied to 95 percent of the provincial population, who depend entirely on the subsistence economy.” What the Provincial and District levels of government lack in terms of implementation, is the political will, leadership, and direction to translate the national policies at the village level where 95% of the population clustered or come from. At the community level, wards and ward development committees are democratic structures, but many have not been transformed into inclusive participatory democracies, as many provincial and district administrators do not know how to make wards and ward committees become functional. Despite the provincial and district governments intention to revive local councils, it added to the complexity of legislation, public office, and administration, which further undermined local democracy, local councils, and local governance. Consequently, one of the key issues at stake in policy development work in Papua New Guinea is that service delivery systems have all but collapsed in many areas of the country. Therefore, the key point of focus in looking at these issues is the area of Local Level Government. Despite, or possibly because of, the existence of an intricate and complicated system of sub-national level government many basic services are not delivered to large areas of the country. Increasingly donors and the Papua New Guinea government itself are looking at the sub-national level in an attempt to overcome these issues. The key point of focus for many of these initiatives is gradually becoming the Provincial and the District levels of government. However, in doing this both donors and Government of Papua New Guinea may be missing the area of the sub-national government where the most impact on the daily life of citizens may be achieved, this being at the Local Levels of Government (LLG) level. The Provincial and District levels are required to carry out service delivery functions and make local laws based on the devolved powers provided in the OLPLLG. Since 1995, however, the District administrative and provincial political and administrative arms have been inundated with capacity-related problems. Critical to this is the inability of the respective administration at the Provincial and District levels to implement the will of their political arm and deliver services to their respective rural settings. Service delivery has been weakened to a point where they are no longer existent in many remote settings. As well, the political arms of many LLGs have not been operating as they should be, reflected in the inability of provincial and district administrations to politically manage LLGs and the inadequate understanding of the LLG’s functions and powers provided in the organic law. With service delivery all but collapsed in many parts of Papua New Guinea there is an urgent requirement to strengthen the capacity of those aspects of the machinery of government in Papua New Guinea which are responsible for service delivery. As a result of mismanagement and misunderstanding being conducted at the Provincial and District levels, the lower tiers of government, that being the LLGs and Ward levels, are effectively being ignored. Given that these lower tiers of government are key sites of service delivery where it is both surprising and unfortunate that more work is not been done in strengthening this level of government. The key role of the District government arm is to integrate the ‘top down’ planning of the Province with the ‘bottom-up’ planning of the Local Levels of Government. LLGs, not Districts, are the key focal points for much of the basic service delivery for communities in contemporary Papua New Guinea. Local Level Governments thus possess a wide range of responsibilities and powers with regards service delivery. These include: provision of water supply; provision of electricity; maintaining peace, good order and law through consultation, mediation, arbitration and community forums; and social services and the like. Local Level Governments are the key site in the provision of services policy implementation in Papua New Guinea but very little work is been done to support their operation by Provincial and District levels of government. The prime purpose for this ordinance of national government being dealing directly with LLGs is that the provincial and district politicians frequently saw LLG Council Presidents and ward councilors as threatening their own political base. (This is sometimes exacerbated when Local Level councilors aligned themselves with national members of parliament.) In such circumstances councils were sometimes deliberately starved of funds and denied their proper status. Not surprisingly, therefore, local government councils made a conspicuous contribution to the opposition to the provincial and district government systems which led to not getting done any tangible developments to the village level. Furthermore, the ‘reform’ of national government by-passing provincial and district levels of government is to shift power directly towards local-level government which can have substantial and tangible effects in social, political and economic aspects of life at the village level. It argued that power distributed or shared through national, provincial and district becomes merely bureaucratic. In contemporary Papua New Guinea, the presence of the ‘state’ is in thin condition to rural majority when the national government deals with the provincial and district levels of government where government’s national policies and decisions do not reach the village level. Hence, the national government must link directly with the local level government to make policies and decisions that are considered to be more political rather than merely bureaucratic at provincial and district levels. It was repeatedly mentioned in the Ministry for Provincial and Local Government Affairs, ‘Papua New Guinea Local Government Gazette, No. G1’, Port Moresby, 15 January 2007, pp.1-55 that the “local government is the best way of strengthening local democracy”. Wards and ward committees should involve the local people and service users, such as PMV operators, trade store operators, dinghy operators, village carpenters, guesthouse operators, and others, so that resources can be more effectively and appropriately used. Local governments, wards, and ward committees could bring in expertise or service providers to provide a variety of services under the national government’s public-private partnership arrangements. Wards and ward committees are necessary for community leadership and for developing sustainable communities. Local governments need to work with their wards and ward committees, and other service providers to draw up long-term plans for the future of their areas. They can work together with other sectors and service providers to agree on the plans, and how to implement them locally. Thus, this is the way forward where it can have a greater development effect at the community level. Local autonomy and capacity are necessary for local councils, wards, and ward committees to function. At the same time, local councils, wards, and ward committees must continue to work in partnership with the national government to achieve national priorities and objectives. A direct partnership with the supreme level of government is essential for good local governance. Local councils, wards, and ward committees need a sound financial basis. They need funding from the national government to ensure that money is available for distribution to areas that most need support. Local councils can set their own budgets so that they can meet community needs, through wards and ward committees. Local autonomy to manage local affairs (freedom and power to drive the local agenda and be able to respond to the needs of their communities) is the only way where country’s democracy is felt in its complete thickness by the local majority. This framework needs to be monitored and evaluated on a consistent basis by national and local governments, at the local level, to ensure effective local democracy, local governance, and service delivery in the local communities. The Public Sector Reform Advisory Group states that Papua New Guinea has lost almost 30 years of opportunities. In its view, to ignore the possibility of refining systems, and instead, repeatedly adopt major changes and end up with no level of government that is competent to deal with the needs of most citizens, is a long-term failure. Therefore, the more logical and possible way to minimize such failures and hard experiences is only through national government dealing directly with Local Level Governments (PSRAG Second Report 2006:14). Participation in decision making and policy formulation through consultation and community consensus (wards and ward committees) are better placed as democratic structures to foster participation in decision making and policy implementation on important issues. Wards and ward committees are necessary to meet the needs of local communities. As democracy means ‘rule by the people’, wards and ward committees give people a voice in the decisions and the matters that affect their lives. That is the inclusive decision making that reflects the whole of the community or PNG society. Therefore, decision makings and policy formulations are open and transparent. That is; wards and ward committees as well as the local councils, can allow for this, as they are closest to the people. This is where fairness, honesty, openness, transparency, and accountability, as well as checks and balances to combat corruption and law and order issues. This highly reflects in style and comfort the government’s power and authority in complete form at the bottom level or the lowest level where people or every Papua New Guinean can be directly involved in policy formulation, policy implementation and decision making. Thank you one & all.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:20:33 +0000
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