Was present 'disaster' the fault of kiaps?
26 February 2011
BY ROY SCRAGG
THE ARTICLE [in Memento] The kiaps in a time of change by Donald Denoon enhances the role of kiaps in public health matters and detracts from the role of all doctors and medical assistants in particular.
Denoon’s short paragraph on health continues his hypercritical attack on the public health service that pervades his historical review Public Health in Papua New Guinea (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
His derogatory use of “stretcher bearers” denigrates both the army private with dedication but no medical training and medical assistants who came from the Australian Army and ANGAU, with medical experience and/or training.
The “quasi-military campaigns” were never “escorted by kiaps”. This comment implies improved safety for the medical assistant but this is far from the actual scene.
The Sinclair/Speer patrol into the Southern Highlands and other patrols into uncontrolled areas were joint ventures to determine the future administration and current health of the people.
Medical assistants were often required to accompany kiap patrols whenever they were available to provide care for the patrol carriers and provide village care, which in turn acted as a bait for village cooperation.
The disease eradication and control campaigns were not “over-ambitious” as through these Public Health Department endeavours the expectation life increased over 25 years from 32 to 52 years – no mean achievement.
His only criticism of kiaps is that “the Administration began to recruit indigenous kiaps precisely when the career itself was becoming obsolete” is a measure of the kiaps understanding of the future.
Kiaps fought a rear guard action to preserve their domain at the same time as all major departments and many sections had operating training programs and educational plans for the future from the late 1950’s.
It is possible to speculate that there is a link between this failure and the disasters that mar the present scene.
Corruption might have been avoided if significant national men and women had been brought into the kiap system before independence to understand that the most important role of community leaders is the community good rather than the demands of wantoks.
Kiaps never prepared for the change that mattered.
Dr Roy Scragg is a former Director of Health in Papua New Guinea
Source: First published in Memento 39, National Archives of Australia. Reprinted in Una Voce, March 2011
No, it's not the Kiap's fault. The present disaster is the result of the PNG public service system post Independence.
All successive administrations after 1975 are to be blamed for this. This includes all Prime Ministers and their governments, including the people's house.
Every PNGean must now take full responsibility for what's happened in our country. The government, parliament and every citizen must bear the brunt of how PNG has turned out.
We can blame Australia to some extent, but the rest is our fault.
Every five years we keep doing this at the polls. The people unfortunately gets the leadership they deserve.
Yes, it was quiet clear to Canberra that the 'kanakas' were not really ready to look after themselves, "... but give it to them anyway, and be rid of them and their savage ways".
Well, it has come back again to make Australia spend more of its money to make things right for PNG.
It certainly did not get it right in 1975!
But should Australia be doing this now?
PNG has the resources. We should be looking after ourselves, come what may.
Posted by: Reginald Renagi | 28 February 2011 at 04:08 PM
The origins of PNG’s rural collapse. Hindsight is such a great remedy for the mistakes of the past.
But, while we can’t change history we can learn from it if we want to. From my experience, albeit limited in terms of years of service, nationalising PNG’s rural field service was attempted in three main ways.
The first attempt was to recruit and train national officers by advancing through the ranks on merit and experience in competition with expat officers. By the early 1970’s, clearly this wasn’t happening fast enough in the eyes of our political masters on both sides of the Torres Strait.
Secondly, the field service was then nationalised from the top down in the mid 1970’s. This created a situation where inexperience and a lack of training and understanding contributed to a collapse in administrative control.
This also revealed a lack of respect shown to some national officers by their own people. That was not the fault of those who received accelerated promotion but was the fault of those who engineered the process.
Thirdly, there was inordinate haste to get rid of the rural kiap system as soon as Independence occurred. This view by some national politicians appeared to grow from a distinct fervour to introduce a different style of administration called the ‘Melanesian Way’. Some have suggested that kiaps were a direct threat to local political ambitions.
By the mid 1970’s most kiaps could see the writing on the wall and left around 1975. Some were given limited term contracts that even in today’s public services, often leads to undue political influence on any administrative decisions.
Recently, the PNG High Commissioner highlighted an observation from Michael Somare that, after a few years of Independence, he recognised that many areas of PNG were not ready for the withdrawal of the kiaps but by then it was too late.
The removal of many administrative controls over field service operations immediately after Independence and the rapid promotion of unqualified or inexperienced officers must be recognised as a harbinger of the current public service woes.
There are now ample numbers of educated and experienced PNG people who could effectively perform government duties. However, until a new and effective control is implemented over government operations there can be no real improvement in the government’s service delivery to the public.
The recent public admission that half the country’s budget is being lost to corrupt practices and half the country’s taxes are not being collected is a classic example.
Posted by: Paul Oates | 26 February 2011 at 12:48 PM
Some people will remember the times of change that enfranchised young, aspiring PNG academics to think beyond their previous aspirations.
More qualified commentators than me will put a perspective on the stupidity of introducing left wing thinkers into the pool of tertiary teachers.
Fresh from the killing fields of African liberation movements, those influences, I think, tore many pages out of the otherwise moderating legacy of the soon to depart Kiaps.
The somewhat hasty removal of the Kiap system of administering far flung districts did indeed invite the swift onset of present day cronyism and corrupt ineptitude.
But perhaps my predilection for thinking that there was an agenda attached to the rising influence of globalism through the ranks of pro-UN advocates that has unduly influenced outcomes (there's that dirty word again) in PNG also colours my perspective.
I was thinking t'other day that with Rhodes scholars on both sides of the Aussie parliament. there is a likelihood of this present era delivering the long promised outcomes to Cecil Rhodes legacy and vision: that of the world being divided into ten regions of governance under one central authority; notionally with Britain as the head.
If this is not an unreasonable thought, it would speak to why there is a seeming paralysis on the part of Australia taking a more proactive and salutory role in remediating the ills of PNG society etc.
Ordo Ab Chaos, eh?
Posted by: Robin Lillicrapp | 26 February 2011 at 09:33 AM