Reforms And Discipline With Structure Needed To Herd People Into Doing Right Things Right
Here is an interesting discussion I snipped from Charlie Gilichibi in the Facebook group PNG News. It is something I have shared here on my wall on many occassions: the need for reforms; discipline with our structure; and an authoritarian police state to herd people into doing the right things right.
Singapore is an example of a country with a less liberal democracy then PNG but it is a thriving prosperous economy. Singapore has tolerated some bad (i.e. deviation from ideal democracy that proponents of democracy are dismayed at) but for much good.
For us in PNG, I think our problem is 'lack of discipline' in following our structure. For example, policy makers interfering with state institutions.
Governor of Western Highlands kange Pais Wingti during his stirring tribute speech to the late GC Sir MTS in parliament did not minced words and was spot on about where he sees things are now and not where they are supposed to be as late GC Sir MTS and the founding fathers have intended. Wingti passionately put to the floor of Parliament that policy makers should not interfere with the operational matters of the Constitutionally established State Institutions. To continuously improve we must identify the deviations from the intended functions of our State Institutions, and for political leaders like Wingti, speak up.
Continuous improvement rests on three key fundamental elements: leadership, structure and discipline.
Leadership - knowing the way, going the way and showing the way in Structure and Discipline.
Structure - having a clear set of policies, processes and procedures to follow in a process to achieve the desired policy outcomes. The Constitution gives us our ‘Structure’.
Discipline - the commitment to every time following the ‘Structure’ (or our Constitution).
A bad system will beat a good person every time. I think that we already have a good system which is given by and drawn its structure from our Constitution. But, we have lacked the discipline and have been trying to cut corners, making our system look like a bad system.
Systems comprise institutions and organisations which are a collection of processes (and marshalling of human resources to achieve an outcome). The institutions of our nation state were set up and organised in a grander scheme to achieve the desired Constitutional outcomes. Policy makers should not get involved in the functions of state institutions like trying to become ‘project managers and service deliverers’.
Any reform to our systems, including our Constitution and breach of structure, must look at how to severely punish law breakers and to herd people into doing the right things right.
In my view we need an authoritarian police state to herd people into doing the right things right and this is already provided for in our Constitution. There is allowance in the Constitution which is implied in the Fifth Goal and National Directives of the Constitution which emboldens us to continuously seek to adopt our ways of ruling the people according to our attitudes and responsiveness to the governing methods and to doing it 'The PNG Way!' The freedoms guaranteed under the constitution are not absolute or complete freedoms and these freedoms can be regulated or restricted by GoPNG for the purpose of public order or bringing in discipline and etc. Besides it must be realised that the traditional Melanesian society is never a democratic society and an authoritarian government using the police as the ‘legitimate force’ to severely punish those who are 'ill-disciplined' in following our structure will not be something new and out-of-place.