Papua New Guinea and Foreign Aid

Fellow is my response on discussions I had with like-minded Papua new Guineans worldwide on how foreign aid is being used and foreign influence in Papua New Guinea.

It was interesting to read your discussions and comments regarding issues in one way or the other affecting Papua New Guinea. From my perspective, PNG as a democratic country has to open up to any country for bilateral relations, either be Australia, China, United States, etc...for diplomacy, Aid, business, etc...

I like one of the guys in here who said earlier and I quote, " Whoever comes to help Papua New Guinea will probably lead us to the water but will not make us to drink". As a independent country, we are the masters of our own destiny and we can't let foreigners to dictate to us on how to run our affairs.

Discovery Service Projects partner with NGO, International Aid to complete the water filter installation and larina stove installation in the La Flecha region of Honduras in 2008

AUSAID or others as most of you have discussed is given at least partly with the objective of benefiting PNG. It may have other functions as well: it may be given as a signal of PNG's diplomatic approval, or to strengthen a PNGDF ally, to reward PNG for behaviour desired by the donor, to extend the donor's cultural influence in PNG, to provide infrastructure needed by the donor for resource extraction from PNG, or to gain other kinds of commercial access.

You've seen how Aid packages have been put into use over the years by the relevant government agencies and it's departments. Even if the principles of a definition are set, it remains difficult to determine the effective flow of aid because aid is fungible: receiving aid may free up PNG's funds for use in non-aid projects that could not have been undertaken had the aid not been received.

If AusAID is funding renovations in major correctional service facilities throughout PNG; for example, where is Papua New Guinea's share of the money that have been budgeted for the same project but should have been diverted to other areas, either purchasing new fleet of vehicles?

I constantly read about CIS officers complaining about transporting offenders to court and back on the same vehicle and once that vehicle breaks down, the cells are full of inmates waiting to go to court because there is no vehicle to take them to court.

The scenario is true for other departments, ie, police, education, etc...instead of buying new police vehicles, millions have been pumped into hire car companies owned by politicians. I failed to understand this and make sense of our current situation in PNG about Aid and our approach toward our donors.

What I see PNG lacking is, we need good leadership who has people's interests before theirs (vital), proper medium, short, and long term goals for PNG, formulate strict mechanisms for the channeling of overseas aid, proper decisions to suit the interest of PNG and not few, strict laws on corruption, mismanagement, bribery, etc...

These are impediments to the development of Papua New Guinea and unless we take time to minimize some of these, we'll continue to expect aid to be our saviour and steal our own funds in broad daylight in the pretext of development.

Present and past successive governments have failed miserable in addressing our deteriorating infrastructure throughout the country and this saddens me when I read about a school with no classroom or a mother has to die because there is no hospital to deliver her baby. This hurt me to the core of my heart when I read of such events everyday.

Lets speak up and be heard, fellow PNGeans!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@