The National | Editorial | 6th August 2024
September looks set to be one of the busiest months of the year for Papua New Guinea.
Parliament is to resume on September 3rd, possibly with a motion of no confidence in the offing the pope will visit form 6-9, and the country will celebrate its 49th year of Independence on September 16.
In addition, the long-awaited local level government (LLG) elections, including that of the Motu-Koitabu Assembly, are expected to run concurrently with the with the Issue of Wirths scheduled for Sept 26.
On the LLG elections, the deferral by two months, from when it was originally planned to be held in June, begs the question of the importance of this system.
A huge amount of 'taxpayers' money in use is outdated and does not contribute much to the overall ward development plan.
It may have been effective and appropriate during the pre-independence era due to a much more effective centralized system.
However, after Independence, many things have changed.
The introduction of the District Development Authority (DDA) Act 2014 can be seen to have further displaced and isolated the role of LLGs.
The introduction of the act was the third comprehensive reform on decentralization and subnational government in PNG.
Unlike former reforms, the DDA arrangement is directly funding districts, which is intended to bypass much of the bureaucratic red tape.
In the process its operations often bypass the Public Finance Management Act and the Auditor General Act.
Contrary to its intent, since the introduction of the act, service delivery has not seen much improvement in most parts of the country.
Many districts are not fully funded, and funding has been delayed when needed most and postponed to near the end of the financial year at most times.
Funding under the District Service Improvement Program (DSIP) are tied to politics to the extent that districts whose members are in the opposition might end up with delayed or no funding on any financial year.
Managment of the funds is also worrying as there are cases of misuse of public funds in districts.
Although improving basic service delivery at the subnational levels of government was the main motivation for introducing the act, the capacity to deliver is clearly lacking in the district.
It does not help when there is lack of qualified officers to implement projects at the district level while at the provincial and national levels, the work of the DDA is not effectively monitored for the simple reason it is not part of the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Governments.
It is an aberration in the legal scheme of the three-tire government, adding a fourth creature of Parliament that is not part of the constitutional plan.
Service delivery has been hampered by the lack of capacity in the district and LLGs and this disconnect in the legal arrangements.
The Department of Provincial and Local level Government Affairs (DPLGA) needs to develop and enhance the DDA's functions and responsibilities and align it to the operations of the provincial and local level governments law.
Amendments to the act are needed for this to happen and they must be made and applied sooner rather than later. Appropriate training must be given to district to officers, especially district administrators or chief executive officer to the board and district finance officers to ensure they do their jobs diligently and in harmony with the set prudential guidelines and law as such as the Public Finance Managment Act 2016.
The LLG system, is an important structure, which acts as an extension of Government, but it needs to be reviewed and transformed to become more effective.
The entire old system needs to be reformed and replaced with an effective community or ward representation system that is relevant, reliable and responsive.
We cannot continue to use a defunct system and expect the good results applying the same old process.