I don't know how many legal eagles browse these pages so please, correct me if I am wrong.
The recent changes to Organic Law on the Duties and Responsibilities of Leaders and also involving the Ombudsman commission was that of MP's changing the law, hence making it harder to be caught out by the Government Watchdog, so to speak. The Members of Parliament passed an amendment to the Organic Law on the Duties and Responsibilities of Leadership restricting leadership tribunals to work within the confines of the rules of evidence.
Prior to this amendment, tribunals could make inquiries into matters referred to it without regard to legal formalities or rules of evidence
The ammendment serves as a major barrior to the work of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman now has to ' act within legal formalities and in strict compliance with the rules of evidence and provisions of the PNG Evidence Act', in other words work harder then they have already been working, in other words, work TWICE as hard.
As it stands, penalties under the leadership code are not severe enough and MP's get away with paying measly (in the scheme of things) fines of K2000.00 . I am 'gob-smacked' to say the least that this ammendment was passed without much opposition, a vote of 73-5, when it went before the parliament.
And we keep on wondering why there is so much corruption and why the state of affairs in the nation cannot and haven't been improving over the last 5 years! The very institution created to gaurd against the abuse of power and to create accountability for those in public offices is in itself being abused through changes made by men who probably fail to understand the very essence of the existence of such bodies!
I do agree that parliment has interfered by altering the items particular to Ombudsman. An independent committee should have done recommendations before the changes. However, i also support the parliment because the changes reduces witch hunting by the ombudsman. As you pointed "The Ombudsman now has to ' act within legal formalities and in strict compliance with the rules of evidence and provisions of the PNG Evidence Act'" which i think is good. I had an experience where a village councilor complained to the ombudsman that my old man was misusing money as he was in a postion of leadership. Without proper evidence provided to the Ombusman and with just lumps of allegations and claims, my dad was hulled in front of the Ombudsmans, causing unnecessary waste of both time and tax payers money..eventually the case was thrown out...As such, i respect the changes.
free to add on..
This message has been edited by vortexPNG on Nov 28, 2006 9:43 PM
Good point Kolwan. On another note, is not the primary role of the Ombudsman to look for and collect evidence? I could be wrong.
Another point for the government of the day might also be to review the penalties under the Leadership Code.
yes kosmo, I think thats the primary role of ombudsman, however to entertain or take a complain from citizens seriously, the complainant should have evidence that back up his or her claim of corrupt or missmanagement by a person(s). The changes have definitely eliminated this...so whoever wants to complain about someone else...they have to have evidence supporting them to be taken serious by the ombudsman...the ombudsman will then conduct their own investigations to verify the claims alleged.
The Ombudsman Commission will always be a useless organisation unless and until they get decent people as commissioners, who are prepared to be unbasised non regional and willing to take on real corruption not just pussy footing around like it has since independence. For example why has'nt Somare ever been referred? Who to blame but the Ombudsman Commission. As we always say if you wanna get serious about corruption then start at the top not half way down.
Further how do we know that the members of the ombudsman commission are not corrupted? who investigates the investigator?. Anecdotal evidence over the past 20 years strongly suggests that only certain selected politicians and leaders are selected for referral while the vast majority are untouched. Perhaps you should ask what criteria or factors are taken into account by the Ombudsman when directing or deciding who to refer. Closer secrutiny will reveal that factors such as regionalism, personal prejudice and bais are governing factors when selecting those leaders to be referred from the annual lists of corrupt leaders which are prepared by Ombudsman investigators and submitted to the Commission for their consideration for referral at the end of each year. Why not refer everyone not just a selected few. For example why was Sir Moi Avei selected for referral and Mr Corruption himself Pias Wingti who like Somare and Chan have never been referred for reasons which defy logic and common sense. This smacks of cronyism on the part of the so called holier than thou Ombudsman Commission.
Obviously something is seriously wrong or gone a miss in its discharge of constitutional duties.
There is no doubt, given the commission's appalling track record for referring only some leaderrs not all that it is an absolute joke and should be replaced by an anti corruption commission with proper investcative powers and commissioners with the integrity to taken on all corrupted leaders in PNG, not just the selected or chosen few, which is the current situation. How hypocritical.
I agree gloury, the ombudsman is a "question mark" organisation. Corruption is systemic, we individual must change our selves nd start asking the right questions.
People like puriatch and others should be the ones facing the music..however we have not seen it happen..so we wonder!
You are a powerful person and is a head of an organisation, you have a job vacancy, you know a friend who is a very capable person who may fill the vacancy. You have experienced working with him/her and know him/her as a very efficient, capable, honest and motivated worker, and on top of the he or she has the necessary qualification.
The job is advertised and you directly tell your friend to apply. Many impressive applicants are submitted. Among this, you find 3 that are hard to seperate, to make matters worse among the 3 is you friend. You call for an interview and still find it impossible to choose.
Finally, you take your friend on the basis that you have already worked with him or her.
You make an interesting point and there will always be borderline cases.
However, if you wanna devoid of any criticism let someone else do the choosing like an independent person. If you are part of a board then you should declare your interest and refrain from voting on the matter. If your friend is chosen for the job then so be it. The selection process was transparent. You either follow the rules or you don't the rules are there to protect people like yourself who are faced with dilemmas like you describe, and you should have nothing to fear.
