East Sepik Province (ESP) was hit by 7. 0 magnitude earthquake and flooding, destroying more than 1000 homes. ESP Governor Allan Bird, learning from the Kadavor volcanic eruption in previous years – when the government was very slow in responding – saved money just in case the province had another disaster. Now he’s using those funds to respond to his people as the PNG bureaucracy works to get the national funding to the people.
By Allan Bird
“Many people criticised me for being financially prudent and strict with public finances resulting in a significant cash holding in the ESPG bank account.
Now, during this crisis, I hope people see the value of keeping something in reserve for the bad times. We actually don’t have to wait for anyone to help us. It’s up to us, we can respond and we are. We have the means and the responsibility falls to our local leaders and public servants.
I don’t believe Sepiks are beggars and we don’t enjoy being ridiculed so we must practice this principle of having something in reserve. We are prone to disaster at any time. We can’t depend on other people, we must help ourselves.
The earliest historical teaching we have of government savings is the story of Joseph in the bible. He saw a time of famine and he convinced Pharoah to store up grain during the good times for 7 years of famine. Well we have kept some of our grain at BSP.
In my first year as Governor, Kardovar erupted and we had no money except K2m PSIP which I kept in reserve. We used part of this money to get our people to safety. There was almost no help from the national government because they didn’t have any money at the time. We had to pay for fuel, rations and allowances for the PNG DF vessel that turned up.
This taught me a hard lesson. We have to be ready to respond quickly without waiting for someone else to come.
PNG does not have any savings, in fact we don’t have a savings culture so in bad times we become victims. Well not this time. This time we are ready.
The twin natural disasters we are facing now will test our resilience and our ability to respond. I urge our local leaders at LLG level, all public servants and our people to do all we can to help our people. We just have to be smart, prudent and diligent.
Now that the PA has declared an emergency, each LLG has been given K200,000 in cash to respond to their peoples urgent needs. That’s K5.6m we authorized last week. We have K5m in PSIP that our JBP&BPC will authorize over the coming days. Again this is in cash, sitting in the bank.
We must use our government vehicles and boats, only hire if we have no other option. Keep our costs low, aim at ensuring maximum help goes to our most affected people.
We have set up our teams and once we have confirmed the needs from every ward we expect to start delivering help from Monday onwards. The information from the wards to our disaster control centre is currently being verified. Some wards are still reporting in.
For example, ESPG is purchasing 5,000 water purification kits from the USA at a cost of USD 85,000 and we will require support to fly them into Wewak. This will supply 5,000 families with clean drinking water through the disaster and long after the disaster is over.
While money is important, it will be the genuine, honest actions of all of us during this very challenging time that will be the difference for our people.”
Context: PNG is disaster prone, but the national government is always unprepared for disaster. The bureaucracy is so inefficient that even when funds are released it is delayed. And corruption is rife. During disaster, the prudent financial measures of transparency and accountability is suspended to ensure fast delivery. This includes suspending the need for tenders and bids from service providers. This is to cut the long tender process and awarding of contracts and give the contract to service providers selected by the tenders board and speed up response. However, this is also allows for authorities and politicians to give contracts to their cronies.
Given these circumstances, having money at the province level like ESP did saves lives.
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