BY MIRIAM MALAWA
CORRUPTION is just a fact of life, but it has a massive cost in business, the economy and wider society, Institute of National Affairs Executive Director Paul Barker says.
He said this during the closing of the third EU-PNG Business, Trade and Investment conference in Port Moresby on Wednesday.
When giving an overview of corruption in his presentation, Mr Barker said the perception of corruption in PNG is not a good one.
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 sectoral 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 unknow, 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.
