Chronic corruption has left the people with decades of darkness

By Joe WASIA

Where is my tax-free city? Where is zero-city? Where are my sealed roads? Where are my modern hospitals? Colleges? Airports? Bridges? Schools?

My beautiful Hela, the home of the much talked giant PNG-LNG project, has nothing to show after four years of beautiful memorandums of understandings and benefits sharing agreements.

My lifestyle is unchanged. It is no different than decades before. The agreement papers have turned blank. It’s like elementary kids playing around with pencil and paper and leaving them unwanted and unattended.
I’m not surprised because Hela is just another of those many resource-rich provinces in Papua New Guinea packed in that same fantasy basket.

The poor Papua New Guineans will continue to live with no or degrading infrastructure and services while the politicians and bureaucrats burrow in the corridors of Waigani performing illegal financial transactions to build their family kingdoms while their five-year term lasts.

And all this at the cost of you and me, the real land and resource owners of PNG LNG, Porgera, Lihir, Ok Tedi, Freida, Ramu Nico, Wau Bulolo, coffee, cocoa, oil palm, fish and timber.

For years successive elected government and opposition MPs have pointed fingers at each other while trying to tell the nation that they are the ones who really care.

They are all thieves. They don’t fight for the people but for their bulging tummies and their wife’s popping arses …. ah, sorry for that word.

After nearly four decades of political independence we now know that governments in Papua New Guinea are not interested in providing true and transparent leadership. Everyone is there for personal gain.

People have lost confidence in the successive governments and oppositions. They are knighted, bestowed and honoured for nothing. Instead of driving this nation forward we are accelerating backwards, fuelled by chronic and systematic corruption.

If you have been watching the political scenarios in this country, you will have seen successive governments abusing their parliamentary majority and privileges. They have blatantly and arrogantly taken the laws of this sovereign nation unto themselves by drafting and amending laws after law to suit their own interests.

It’s about time O’Neill-Dion and Namah-Basil set the path right for future generations to see and appreciate. The government must be responsible and people-centred in providing good governance to the seven million people of this nation.

And the opposition must provide a full scrutiny over every dealing but within the laws of this country.