Comments

Thanks YbK. God is no respector of persons. Even my view shall not change one iota of God's divine power and will. We need to be found listening to the will of God and his prevailing wisdom. Can not speak of Trump neither Brexit. Both situations are unique in their own merit. The trends are not familiar and comparable enough to suggest that people power will speak again. I would rather say nothing than worry about the chicken before it hatches. Enough writings on the wall. Even if I wait....my anticipation is on God to lead me daily. Your views, YbK, are responsible and respected.

Thanks Stephen Your discussions around MP funds is interesting to the fact that it increases over the last few years. Maybe you referred to other MP funds as well but the most popular top-up is DSIP funds currently stands at PGK15 million per year, in a 5-year term of Parliament, its equivalent to PGK75 million. This is a lot of money for an electorate and everyone has to fight tooth and nail to get into power and control it. This DSIP fund is legally pegged against all social development aspects (education, health, agriculture etc) in district, which the MP and his/her committee now called the DDA will have to formulate budget for it. A small portion from this funding (DSIP) is regarded as discretionary funds for MP. That is the allocation which MP can decide where and how to use, but not to personal use. So concern raised by many is on the use of this PGK15 million in the district and nothing tangible is on ground to show. Also the mechanism in place to monitor expense of this public funding is weak and subject to manipulation. However, few of those subject to honest monitoring and audit resulted in some MP being prosecuted before the laws for miss appropriation and thieve. At the same time this current government introduces “free education and health care services” and poured money directly into district, but this should not give MP or DDA the leeway to cease funding allocation to education and health in the district with DSIP funding. The reality now is that, MP is the CEO of DDA and appoint his/her cronies to DDA board, influence DDA to entertain paper proposals along cronies and tribal loyalists. They walk away with fatty cheques while some put huge claims for little cost or value of job done. To paint the situation in the district look better, most MP bought vehicles and presented to schools, health centres and ward counsellors as gifts with slogan like “donation by MP…..”. People see and thought this MP is performing well, but if you go down to the school with the new vehicle donated by MP, the classrooms are run down, no desk for students and even no teacher house, the same goes to health centre with the new donated vehicle. To change this model of MP funds is up the legislators themselves or need an honest prime minister to propose a review to this MP funds. Otherwise they knowingly create this system to appease their hunger for wealth and power.

Nice article . How about accountability ?

Hello again Mitiana. The comment posted by Gerard Ng made me realise that there’s more I could mention to you that might be useful. For instance, are you aware that phone interviews were undertaken regarding food security during the recent drought in Papua New Guinea? Information on the phone interview technique can be found <a href="http://mvam.org/2016/03/04/getting-food-security-data-from-rugged-and-remote-areas-of-papua-new-guinea/" rel="nofollow">here</a> and my earlier, speculative comments regarding the potential for phones to assist with the drought response are available <a href="https://www.lowyinterpreter.org/the-interpreter/ringing-change-how-mobile-phones-could-aid-drought-response-png" rel="nofollow">here</a>. You may also be interested in a systematic body of work being funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to look into the use of tablets and smartphones in data collection. They started with a desktop review of 17 software options, narrowed down to two that seemed suitable and then tested the two of them in the field. They are now beginning to trial the software option that performed best in agriculture projects in several countries, including Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, as well as some in Asia. A film on this work is available <a href="https://vimeo.com/175285740" rel="nofollow">here</a> and more information is available <a href="http://agimpact.org/resources/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Amanda. 🙂

Hi Mitiana, The use of digital platforms is definitely something that can be explored further in PICs. During the El Nino drought in PNG, several INGOs used KoBo for drought assessments while UNDP also recently supported PNG's National Disaster Centre in utilising KoBo for data consolidation and analysis during its post drought assessment. Aside from technical issues, some of the major obstacles to good assessments is a sound understanding of data collection and stepping out of the "paper-based" comfort zone. Would be great to connect and have discussions on furthering the use of tools such as Akvo and KoBo. Gerard

Dear Mitiana, My thanks for an interesting post, with some useful links. You may also be interested in an article I published on the experiences of tsunami alerts in one coastal village in Papua New Guinea. It's available <a href="https://ajem.infoservices.com.au/items/AJEM-27-04-11" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Amanda. 🙂

I am now a little out of touch, but the great tragedy of MPs funds is not its magnitude per se, but how little is actually accomplished with it. National Audit Office reports and Provincial Audit Committee reports - where such committees exist and are active - tell a shameful story. Is it the same country-wide? I do not know, but some information highlighting better and worse performances would help PNG citizens hold poor performing MPs to account, and give reasons to re-elect MPs who have not just spent funds, but delivered results.

Thank you Betty Lovai for an important article. Violence aginast women, equality in the workplace and in society, will not change until we name and accept embedded cultual beliefs and behaviours about the role of men and the role of women in our societies.

Thanks for these comments. I stand corrected, James. My assertion was based on our "Lost Decade" report. Our Figure 7.2 has PNG MP funds at 9% of total expenditure and Solomon Islands at 8%. But that was a couple of years ago, and it sounds like Solomon Islands has changed since then. Philippines and Kenya were the only two other countries we could find where such funds made up more than 1% of total spending. That chapter has some useful information re your question Jo. It is hard to know how much of the MP funding ends up with schools and hospitals, but our survey in 2012 did find it was an important source of funding for them - and that was before the massive scaling up. For example, we found that 20% of schools and 23% of health clinics reported having benefited from MP funds. Most of the projects involved building something. You can read the analysis here (https://devpolicy.org/publications/reports/PEPE/PEPE%20Chapter%207.pdf) but the most telling statistic I think is that 41% of the schools and 45% of the health clinics believed that their MP-funded project would never be completed. Tony also makes an important point. 30% of the government's payments to schools are now made to MPs! (see Grant Walton's post: https://devpolicy.org/creeping-re-centralisation-pngs-education-sector-20160615/. So that should really be counted in the MP funding. That's an additional K 200 million or 1.5% of total spending.

Hmmm not sure I can see Bono making Donald Trump cry http://rgkcenter.org/sites/default/files/file/research/ISQU_451.pdf

Great post, thanks. Does anybody have any data or reasonable estimates regarding if and how much MPs spend from their funds on health and education, and what the nature of this expenditure is? I'm aware of all the problems/issues, etc. regarding constituency funds, just curious.

Also, the cuts to education and health funding are arguably made worse by the protection (in nominal terms) of "free" education and health policy funding in the budget. Free health policy is probably not providing any additional support to health clinics that were previously raising funds through user fees, and the same might be true for schools now that there are reports that a substantial proportion of TFF funds that were previously paid directly to schools (in lieu of abolished tuition and project fees) are being diverted to the control of district authorities. Again, something has to give within these sectors, and so the actual cuts to funding of goods and services that support education and health service delivery will be larger than what you have reported.