Over the past decade, researchers (see here, here, here, and here) have illuminated the various ways Papua New Guineans understand corruption. However, as others have highlighted, there is still much we do not know about how ordinary Papua New Guineans respond to the seemingly widespread corruption across the country. In this blog, I suggest that widespread corruption may be causing some Papua New Guineans to believe that corruption is a way of life.
In 2020, I conducted a study to better understand how Papua New Guineans from a variety of backgrounds understand and respond to corruption. The study involved 83 participants, including government and private sector employees, retired senior public servants, university students, and informal sector vendors. Two data collection techniques were used – an online survey and focus group discussions. There were 41 survey participants, and eight focus groups consisting of 42 participants. Participants were asked questions relating to government transparency, rule of law and rule bending, recruitment and appointment systems, public contracts, bribery, nepotism (particularly through the wantok system), favouritism, gift giving, and use of discretionary powers.
In line with previous studies, almost all respondents (99% – this includes respondents from focus groups who were also individually asked questions) believed that corruption is either highly problematic or problematic in the public service. In addition, 62% of respondents believed that most public servants have received bribes or kickbacks in one form or another through informal exchanges (mostly petty corruption), while 52% thought most politicians have been bribed by businesses or firms for political favours (grand corruption).
Respondents described a variety of everyday practices that some saw as constituting or contributing towards corruption. These included providing public officials and others money for lunch, Coca-Cola, bus fare, buai (betelnut), phone flex cards and other gifts. Generally, public servants expect these gifts as a reward for providing a government service or ‘favours’.
A middle management female public servant said that “every ordinary public servant nowadays asks for ‘lunch money’ or ‘side coins’ to perform their otherwise mandated responsibility. To me this is corruption, an abuse of responsibility in the administrative system.”
While many participants saw these practices as constituting corruption, some viewed them as tokens of appreciation that fulfil Melanesian obligations of reciprocity. As one self-employed female survey participant noted, “there is a fine line here, especially from a cultural point of view… A small lunch money, as a token of appreciation, is not really corruption, unless it is meant to attract future dealings.”
One middle management private sector male employee gave two reasons why many engage in these practices:
“[First, because] demand for daily expenses relating to high rental costs, school fees, transportation, and security and family welfare are always high. I cannot concentrate on work unless I know my family is taken care of and safe at home. If it means I have to leave work anytime and participate in other activities to make ends meet to subsidise my family’s daily needs, I have to. The second reason is the need to meet cultural and big man obligations, which have several ramifications including feeding off the public coffers.”
A self-employed male survey participant noted that “times are hard today and many people, both employed and unemployed, get into unscrupulous schemes and dirty deals every now and then for a little bit of money to get by in these hard times.” In the absence of a regulated welfare system, PNG’s wantok system helps meet the daily needs of the people, including public servants, many of whom survive on borrowed money.
Concerns about widespread corruption made some pessimistic about the potential for change. For example, a female student from the University of Papua New Guinea said, “Corruption is systematic and is already in place. It’s already inbuilt in our system. Everyone that goes into the system tends to follow that practice.”
Others suggested that poor law enforcement undermined citizens’ willingness to care about corruption. A middle management private sector female employee said, “The problem in PNG is that we fail to enforce the rule of law over the issue of corruption. Lack of enforcement is the main factor causing disillusion and ‘no care attitude’ among our people, especially within the public sector.”
Some respondents also said that because politicians and other ‘big people’ were corrupt, they might as well be too. An unemployed male focus group participant said:
“In my opinion, corruption is not only unique in the top level of government. It starts from the grassroots level and goes up the structure… Because those at the top practise it, those below find it convenient to engage in corruption. For instance, in my village, if I want to enrol my son in school and there are no more spaces, I have to give some ‘Coca-Cola money’ to the headmaster to have my child enrolled. From the village to the town, it is the same. If I had already purchased a plane ticket, but there are no spaces, I have to give some ‘Coca-Cola money’ to the ticketing officer to create a space for me to travel. When I arrive in the city, it is just the same. Everywhere, there is corruption.”
In PNG there are many laws against corruption. There are also a host of integrity agencies, a new Independent Commission against Corruption, as well as NGOs and donors that support anti-corruption reform. Despite these well-intentioned efforts, findings from my research suggest many citizens are simply giving up. That is, they now think corruption is a norm that cannot be changed. These findings indicate that much more needs to be done to convince the country’s citizens that the fight against corruption is still worthwhile.
This research is part of the author’s PhD being undertaken at James Cook University. The author would like to acknowledge Dr Grant Walton, Fellow of the Development Policy Centre for his feedback.
“Corruption”, if looked at from a traditional cultural perspective as against modern culture of statecraft and public administration, it entails a stark contrast as to how, where, what and when this noble human act is applied. In many respects, the modern definition of corruption prohibits and outlaws traditional cultural norms and practices of the Melanesian society. For example, a gift given to a service provider in appreciation for a job well done would be interpreted as an act of corruption by modern standards. This shows that what is a normal way of social behaviour and conduct will actually be wrong and unlawful in the modern cultural context.
To me corruption in Melanesian traditional cultural context is a noble act because the action is peaceful, generous, appreciative, and fosters harmonious coexistence between the server and the served or the service provider and the client. The corrupt or noble action does not constitute terrorism or serious security threats to life and assets. It is just a friendly or positive gesture and recognition in appreciation.
However, it is true if such a traditional cultural and social behaviour reaches a whole new level of actions is alarming with dreadful ramifications bound to decay the fabric of society. Like Sir Mekere Morauta had stated, ‘corruption has become systematic and systemic.’
For one to eradicate corruption, it must go beyond ‘change of attitude and behaviour of citizens’. It warrants change of regime from democratic to authoritarian government to instil fear, discipline and rule of law.
This is a great contribution to the debate. See below some excerpts from my thesis:
In the Pacific Islands (particularly within the Melanesian sub-region), Larmour (2008 & 2012) noted two opposing, but related views about corruption. The first view is that “outsiders’ (West) view culture as an exacerbator of corruption, while the islanders view culture through the traditional moral economy lens. For instance, the act of gift-giving is regarded as a ceremonial gesture by the islanders and does not constitute corruption, while a gift may be seen by an outsider as bribery, and therefore corrupt. This view is associated with the cultural relativism debate where “something regarded as corrupt in one country, or sub-culture might not be regraded as corrupt in another” (Larmour, 2008, p. 227).
The second, and perhaps the most common view is the decaying of moral values and conduct (or behaviour) among the Pacific Island leaders after independence. Most PICs gained independence between the 1960s and the 1980s. In my research on government corruption in PNG, I argued that colonialism itself was not a homogenising process (in a highly fragmented and culturally diverse society), and elements of neo-patrimonial rule and clientelism were already shaping modern political governance in PNG. For instance, Australia’s colonial policies failed to prevent indigenous cultural and traditional practices of reciprocity (e.g., the wantok and big man systems) from creeping into the modern administrative system that it helped established in PNG. Ironically, colonialism had created an indigenous elite class, who tended to mimic Western capitalist values by incorporating local customs and cultures into formal or official roles. When colonialism ended, the emerging indigenous elite class “sought to use their newfound political power to reshape state power to extend accumulation [of wealth]” (MacWilliam, 2013, p. 239). By using and personalising this new form of political power, these indigenous elites consolidated their authority as big men – a trait typical of neo-patrimonial rule. Despite the fact that social exchanges, gift-giving, and social and familial connections are important tenets of a strong traditional moral economy, cultural nobility had failed in many PICs because the islanders rely too much on culture to maintain these traditional moral economy values, and therefore were distracted from distinguishing between the moral grey zones. Kanekane (2007) referred to this failure as “moral failing” where traditional morality (kastom and gift-giving) has easily given way to corrupt practices (for instance, bribery) within the modern political and neo-liberal economic institutions.
So culture is both a blessing and a curse (for the wrong reasons). Corruption is indeed systemic and systematic. I concur that to curb corruption requires a total behavioural shift – both personal and institutional.
Cheers,
It is a cultural clash – the economy is reformed in a way to promote individualism, private possession, and “survival of the fittest”… Greed is rational (although we could say, it is not ethical). Cultures and social norms are not written on stones, we adapt to new changes (opportunities and/or threats) – our reactive cultures against the introduction of capitalism and neoliberalism have underpinned bribery, nepotism, corruption, poverty, and increased dependency rate. This type of reactive attitude and short-term views have, in many ways, kept our societies in the poverty trap. Our traditional social-safety system or “sharing culture” is not compatible with capitalism and neoliberalism. We do not have an economic problem, we have a cultural problem.
Thanks, Thomas! These are some important notes you’ve contributed toward the discussion. The idea of “possessive individualism” is driven by neo-liberal logic based around capitalism and market economy. I like the idea that we have a cultural problem, not economic. We’ve actually abused our culture for all the wrong reasons – moral failing.
As a Papua New Guinean student, I’ve seen that corruption has eating Papua New Guinea. I think to overcome corruption, we should enforced law and order and stick to the Papua New Guinea Goals.
Concur with all sentiments raised here that corruption is widespread and has become a norm in PNG.As a way fwd in eradicating it, we need a shift in peoples mindset and behavior that would enable us to start electing good leaders to parliament who would fight corruption head on. Currently there are only few good MPs whist the majority are tainted hence the status quo remains. The change has to start from the corridors of waigani and we need to educate the people to think and vote based on their conscience (and not some short term material benefits).I think this is the way fwd to addressing this pandemic in our society.
This is one way forward. By educating our people, we hope to see a cultural shift in mindset and how people approach everyday corruption. We need honest people to start a serious national conversation re this.
Early Independence has ruined PNG. PNG lacked Western influence before Independence. We have a strong and dynamic instinct of culture – Wantok System. Therefore corruption in PNG is stemmed from this culture and eventually migrated into every work place and manifested our conscience. I believe in western style of thinking to manage our affairs. We should have allow more western influence. I think that could have shape PNG today.
There are pros and cons of this line of thinking re Western colonialism and the date of political independence, which I cannot comment on. With regards to the influence of wantok system on our modern administrative and political systems, around 80% of my respondents think that wantok system has permeated formal structures of governance, therefore exacerbating corrupt practices. It’s traditional novelty as an informal system of reciprocity has faded in significance.
Hello there Mr.Winn,
I have much to talk about on this very important issue.
Therefore, I think I need to have some direct discussion with you first and foremost from where we can chart out a leeway as to how best an effective strategy to curtail such a monster of a pandemic can ever be contemplated seeing that corruption has already grown its roots right throughout the entire nation: from every organ of state employing (politicians & public servants) and civil society including the private sector organisations.
Please give me your phone number through email.
Regards
Richard Sasuara
Port Moresby Papua New Guinea
Lunch money and so on has been around forever being a signature feature in pretty well all developing economies. I would be interested in the focus of your thesis, for example, are there ways to manage corruption at the retail transactional level or are we going to stay with the old AusAid gold standard of impossibility forever?
Everyday corruption is indeed not unique to PNG. However, the only difference would be the context in which these practices occur. For insurance, gift-giving in Nigeria using its own informal systems for reciprocity (ISRs) may not have the same degree of influence or form, as that of wantok system in PNG (Melanesia). There is a lot that we do not know about ourselves (or even if we know, we tend to ignore) when it comes to our traditions and moral obligations to the state. Western interventions can go as far as the system allows. Beyond that, we must deal with the context – development dynamics and challenges in cross-cultural settings sometimes can be difficult to reign in successfully. We have laws, but these laws are weak because they are not respected. One way to cut out corruption at the retail level (demand & supply of corruption) is to digitize all government transactions. Feel free to tease out ideas.
Thank you for your feedback. Your experience/observation is vital in informing current and future research on corruption. Understanding context is important for any anti-corruption reform to work effectively in PNG.
When was corruption started and practised through the parilament then all sectors?
It seem to me that corruption is so wide-spread and systemic, that the distinction between us (the honest ones) and them (the corrupt politicians or civil servants) is rather meaningless. Any sign of effort to take some responsibility by regular citizens? Good luck with your PhD!
You have a point, Albert! It has become meaningless because despite how hard we stand up for what is right, our efforts continue to drown in a sea of ignorance. Corrupt PNG officials and their associates (these include regular citizens who tolerate and partake in corruption) know what shape and form corruption comes in, but they continue to ignore it. PNG has some good honest people around, but the environment is too politically saturated and compromised.
So true, corruption is a demon with many faces. You cut off one, the other pops out from nowhere. Despite of all the good efforts, it will adapt to new rules and technology.
I couldn’t agree more Mr Winn. As I Papua New Guinea working for an SOE. It’s evident and I see corruption happening every day both formal and informal sectors.