Dilemma of Leadership and Governance

The Pacific country of Papua New Guinea has come to another crucial crossroad in its development considerations. This week the discussions and controversies surrounding the Ramu Nickel Mine in its coastal province of Madang flared again due to the recent National Court decision not to lift an injunction on the Ramu Nickel Mine.

The fear of the Madang people is about the mining tailings and the waste management of tailings because the mining company proposed to dump mine tailings directly into the sea. This is a genuine fear and really should have been taken seriously by the government of Papua New Guinea, respected by other Papua New Guineans and the Chinese mining company as well.

Cart before the Horse? photo: http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/cart-before-the-horse.png

Instead, the government of Papua New Guinea went to unnatural efforts to silence the voices of its own people. It made amendments to existing and legitimate laws in order to facilitate the mining contractor's exploitation of the nickel mine and it acted in many ways to hinder the powers of its own state departments tasked with policing mining and other large scale resource extraction practices. But worst of all, the government of Papua New Guinea even proceeded to remove the basic rights of its own people which had been enshrined under the National Constitution.

Mining is responsible for the greatest strife in the history of Papua New Guinea when it caused a civil war to erupt on Bougainville, a former province of Papua New Guinea, in 1989. Bougainville has now gained its own autonomous rule and government, but the cost of human life was great for a small country which saw a civil war that went on for almost three times the length of the second world war, claimed more than twenty thousand lives and shocked a nation which had never imagined its army pointing guns at its own people. But after more than fifteen years of civil war, this blemish now stands to forever be a stain in the history of a once hopeful nation.

Now thousands of Madang people are greatly concerned about their own livelihood and the future state of its unique marine environment and the sea on its coastline into which a Chinese mining company plans to dump the nickel mine's tailings waste.

Papua New Guinean government officials say that the delay in these mining plans will affect the national economy and future investment. Criticism from the government aimed at NGOs especially those issuing from the Honorable James Pundari who wants to create a government body which polices the activities of NGOs should also be taken seriously. These statements should be considered from many perspectives. 

Two things perhaps should be first recognised and considered amidst the frustration of government leaders and officials: 

One, that the country has not had an effective opposition since the passing away of Sir Yambaky Okuk. Papua New Guinea misses such a leader today as Sir Yambaky. Although he himself was not free of political controversy, he was notorious worldwide as being one of the most effective and fiery leaders of the opposition of any modern democracy.

The second question concerns the intentions of the Papua New Guinean government to create a watchdog tasked with watching NGO activism in the country. NGOs and civil society in today's Papua New Guinea, form one of the few effective oppositions to a seemingly "dictatorial" democracy, which itself is active in trying to silence its own Ombudsman Commission by formulating policies which hinder the Ombudsman Commission's roles and activities.

Herein lies a dilemma and perhaps the hypocrisy of a governmental regime concerned with silencing opposition to the excesses and errors of its own political practice while at the same time active in its policy efforts to create loop holes that could advance unaccountability. Many people see Papua New Guinea's politics to now be on a path to creating super individuals out of leaders elected by ordinary citizens into public office. This indicates that our politicians are assuming the ordinary mandate to public service to mean a licence to wield absolute and oppressive powers.

The Ombudsman is the legitimate watchdog that watches all forms of public leadership. NGOs countrywide respect the role of the Ombudsman Commission. A couple of years ago NGO leaders of Papua New Guinea even pointed out to our Ombudsmen and Ombudswomen during an NGO leadership gathering with the Ombudsman Commisioners, that in the future, there may be a need to explore the idea of an extension of its functions to include the scrutiny of corrupt practices in our own NGO leadership. We wanted this to also include the scrutiny of the leadership of church based organisations where corruption has also been experienced by many of our communities. This point concerning governance and leadership is about the conduct of people who are elected to posts of public responsibility and their abuse of that public trust and the abuse of whatever public office to which they are elected or employed to serve a community.

At this juncture, it is probably time to look at our national dilemma of leadership and governance and to look at the pretexts offered to ordinary Papua New Guineans as the grounds and reasoning as to why it is necessary and rational for politicians to require next to absolute powers while at the same time, trying to hinder the powers of any legitimate opposition to and scrutiny of the nature of their practises. 

Our politicians and government officials express that they carry on as they do under the duress of legitimate concern for the national welfare and development aspirations of Papua New Guinea. But what really is this development that they seek for Papua New Guinea? Ordinary people require some evidence of a systematic drive at least to manage and maintain existing public assets and infrastructure prior to undertaking new and more demanding tasks. People need to witness a consistent and explicit investment in our children's education and in our health facilities. They need to see their government investing a greater effort in the business interests of our rural people. If our politicians really believe that a mine is an activity in which surrounding communities can fully participate in and benefit from, then they should show the people what causes our leaders and public officials to have such a strong faith in mining. They should provide and show financial flow plans where royalties from mines would actually be found to improve the local people's livelihoods. They need to show us a single mining community on Earth which had a vibrant economy after the end of a mining activity. Yet, this is not at all the issue that the Madang people are facing.

The people of Madang are simply opposed to the proposed method of mining waste management. They reject the mining company's proposal of dumping mining tailings directly into the sea for the next decades of the life of the Ramu Nickel Mine. The government and the mining company should accept this concern and invest a considerable effort in finding better alternatives, instead of concerning themselves with destroying the people's democracy and the national constitution which protects our basic human rights and legitimate wish to survive in a comfortable environment.