Comments

There are proposals before parliament for alternative forms and systems of government. A consultation was conducted by the Constitutional Law Commission in 2023-2024. Parliament has not tabled and debated it yet.

Dear Fredrick, Good to read your comments. Interestingly, Papua New Guinea and Kenya share a notable similarity in the use of constituency funding. Kenya is often cited as a positive example of how the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) can be effectively implemented—whereas PNG is frequently regarded as a bad case. For instance, PNG’s CDF is allegedly used to secure political support in votes of no confidence. Unlike Kenya, which has a standalone CDF Act providing a legal framework and oversight, PNG lacks such legislation. This absence leaves significant room for misuse—such as rewarding Members of Parliament who back the Prime Minister with access to funds, while delaying or withholding the share meant for opposition MPs.

Michael Kabuni, I enjoy reading your articles. Here in Kenya, we would simply call you "Daktari" a swahili translation for "Doctor". Good insight. I see alot of similarities with Kenya's governance system.

Dear Lisa This is a great article and I like that you can see a silver lining in this madness! One of my queries about localisation is that in implementation it may replicate the power hierarchies and discrimination that we see in wider society. There was a study on localisation at Cordaid which noted that local NGO priorities diverted significantly from international NGOs "While several interviewees argue that the fundamental values pursued by INGOs and LNGOs are identical (interviewees 2, 3, 6, 7, 9), the widely supported opinion is that in terms of gender-related, LGBTQ+, and religious minority rights, INGOs and LNGOs regularly operate based on significantly divergent values. For instance, local partners in multiple countries are described as not believing in “LGBTQ+ stuff” and being reluctant to promote LGBTQ+ and gender-related rights due to the lack of acceptance culturally and by authorities, even having to fear for their lives when addressing such sensitive topics". I don't think that anyone externally should be imposing values on others, but I do know some local organisations (currently) who support minority rights who are grateful for the external actors / INGOs or external consultants (even from other neighbouring countries) that support their initiatives and help open up the conversation - and which offers them a degree of safety to advocate for more inclusive approaches to justice etc. It is also frequently suggested that localisation should mean a transformation of the values should inform development aims - in that the local community’s values should prevail as part of genuine (community-oriented) localisation. In one article I read it was written "NGOs work for the local communities, after all. If localisation concerns shifting agency and power from Northern to Southern NGOs, they reason it should not only entail shifting “operational” agency, but “value” agency as well." This sounds good and right to me. However I do worry that in this scenario smaller organisations that advocate for 'unpopular' values or who enjoy lesser power may be ignored or worse, threatened and shut down. Again I have no quick solutions and I know some of these issues we have discussed before!! Unfortunately I do strongly believe that President Trump's "war on 'woke'" (or war on human rights) seems to have given explicit permission to certain sectors in all societies all over the world (including in Australia) to be louder and more discriminatory and more traditional/conservative in their behaviour and their words. But here I am probably getting off topic... Thanks again for the great piece and all the other very interesting comments. Renee

Hi Peter, Thanks for your comments and sorry for the belated reply. I think "formal evaluation of outcomes" will only get us so far. How much different projects achieve is often a matter of judgement. I also think following principles like localisation is important for effective aid, even if we often can't tell exactly how effective that aid is. It's a messy business, and there is no single or simple approach to assessing or improving aid effectiveness in my view. I do agree with you of course that aid effectiveness is important and the blog tried to cover both aid quantity and aid quality issues. I do appreciate your advocacy for effective aid. Please keep the comments coming. Regards, Stephen

Great discussion. Is it possible to restructure the entire government system so that Judiciary to be a superior authority over Legislature? Thus guiding them in legal specialties. Since the so called MPs are legally not educated and also they are not supposed to pass laws that are not in the best interests of the people. For instance, the current political situations.

Dear John Conroy. I've no real comment or question on your two posts except to express appreciation on the timeliness of the REMINDER to Papua New Guineans on the value of Fisk's 'Subsistence Affluence'. So much land and time wasted with misguided views on how to become affluent on the available land. My immediate plea is that whenever, and if by some weird or miraculous chance, you land in PNG please deliver a lecture/seminar at UPNG on this or, even better find a chance to speak to the various Ministers for agriculture/subsistence farming including the NEC. PNG ancestors thought like Fisk when using the land and sharing the bounties with all and sundry.

Thanks all. I'm not a Dr. - not yet. Not sure about the deference of the councilors and presidential elections, but I'd assume that the continued deference is unconstitutional as they constitute the third level of government.

Thank you very much Dr. Kabuni with respect for such a very powerful and insightful analysis into the issue itself.

Hi Joelson, thanks for your comments. You’re right - the sample is very small and not representative. We didn’t talk about the specific rights that the Counter-Terrorism Act potentially violates due to Devpol blog’s word limits. However, I provided a more detailed analysis elsewhere. If you’re interested, here’s the link: https://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/pac-png-terrorism-03312025033326.html?

That's an insightful read. Thank you, sir

Firstly, this is a very interesting article and provides a useful glimpse into the reactions of many people, mostly young people still in studying at Tertiary Institutions or Universities around the country. I don't believe it's fairly representative of all the people that currently reside in Port Moresby or across Papua New Guinea. Although this article was good. It lacked clarity in terms of specifics such as, "citizens rights" - which one's? The Right to Freedom of Speech should be carefully outlined and referenced should also be made of the UN Conventions on Human Rights.