Photo credit: The Economic Times
Institute of National Affairs Executive Director Paul Barker stated that corruption is a certainty of life, but it has a massive cost in business, the economy and wider society, He said this during the closing of the third EU-PNG Business, Trade and Investment conference in Port Moresby.
Mr. Barker said the perception of corruption in PNG is not a good one. When giving an overview of corruption in his presentation.
He said: “Corruption existed in PNG but largely small scale in the early in the 1970s and early 80s although the first effort to divert the major public funds took place in the 1980s with the diversion of the sectorial funds.”
Mr. Barker however said corruption has a massive cost in business, the economy and wider society.
“Tackling corruption requires a combination of prevention, oversight and penalties. It’s not the size of penalties of probabilities of getting caught,” he explained.
“PNG has extensive laws and the laws are reasonable as constitution are highly regarded, but the problem is, we have limited applications of those laws, they are not widely unknown, including by official working in institutions, and they are not enforced in this regard. But it is not the law that is the issue, but it is not applying these laws.”
He also said corruption is a worldwide problem and it can’t be eliminated entirely but it can be drastically curtailed in short period.
