Corruption in PNG and the Pacific

At the end of July 2017, TINZ held a three-day meeting of Transparency International’s Asia Pacific chapters. TI’s Global Chair, José Ugaz was in attendance. He saw first-hand that corruption remains entrenched throughout many places in the Pacific. The following letter was sent to him by TI-PNG’s Chair, Lawrence Stephens.

Letter from Lawrence Stephens, Chair TI-PNG

Dear José,

I have been attempting to send you copies of coverage of your visit from our Tok Pisin national weekly newspaper. It was given page 1 status with follow up on pages 2 and 3. I will try again tomorrow.

I should point out that I am a member of the board of that publication but had nothing to do with the editorial decision which gave your visit such prominence. In fact, I have had no contact with the staff for some weeks now.

Tok Pisin is the language I used to thank the Bougainville “bamboo” band during the farewell kaikai (meal) we had on Tuesday night. It is one of our three official languages.

It may be of interest to you to know that we launched a list of outstanding corruption issues yesterday. We wanted to have you with us for that but your flights did not permit it.

It was a great occasion thanks to Arianne and Yua. I will send you a copy of the report shortly.

Also, tonight Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TI-PNG) directors Peter Aitsi, Valentina Kaman, Richard Kassman and I met, at his request, the newly appointed Attorney General, Davis Steven. He was re-elected as a member of Parliament for Esa’ala in one of our maritime electorates off the Eastern coast of New Guinea, a lawyer. It came at an interesting time here with our PM once again securing a legal decision to avoid arrest for his role in the “Paraka gate” matter to which you referred several times.

The Attorney General indicated interest in working with us to improve the CPI rating of PNG. We will see how this develops but in the meantime, I am very grateful for the strong but polite positions presented to him by my fellow directors. Attorney General Davis Steven has already followed up with a text message to me indicating willingness to engage with us.

As I tap out this message I am listening to some very strong messages from my friends, who travel with me each day to and from the city, warning each other on the need to watch out for people who might be upset by the flood of comments, reported in the media today, by me as chair of TI PNG, on the issues we face. They are more concerned than I.

We have encouraged the PM to honour his anti-corruption promises, present himself for examination by the fraud squad and drawn attention to a litany of outstanding issues not addressed by us all including the apparently inexplicable and uninvestigated loss of K8 billion (US $ 3 billion) from our public trust accounts. Our report is titled “Less We Forget”, words which are normally associated with recalling lives lost by us in war. One of our members, the Catholic Archbishop of Mount Hagen, responded by saying he was initially not impressed by the choice of title but, on reflection, decided that it was an appropriate way of drawing attention to the deaths caused by enemies of the people through corruption.

It is a time of tension because many are concerned that their actions are likely to be examined. There are many who are concerned

I was proud to be part of the delegation of TI PNG directors who explained to the AG our commitment to better governance, expressed gratitude for his willingness to explore with us practical measures to make a difference but insisted on our honouring the obligation we believe we have to say what we think and criticise where we feel criticism is needed and can, we hope, be helpful.

Thanks again for your visit.

Lawrence Stephens