By Clifford Faiparik
Chief of PNG Defense force Major General Mark Goina has vowed to clean up the recruitment process that was marred with allegations of bribery, corruption, nepotism and regionalism.
And he thanked the Defense Council for giving prominence in an effort to eradicate this allegation in the recruitment process.
“As part of the PNGDF growth, I wish to thank the Defense Council whom has approved the raising of the recruitment office to a directorate. It will now have a director in charge and be given the administrative and resourcing house power it needs. It is my intent to transform our recruiting process from its structures, systems, procedures, infrastructure and equipment, to staff and selection and training. We will eradicate corruption and nepotism in our recruiting process and ensure that it is proficient and effective. Our recruitment will be focused on Force requirement rather than growth, while we build the infrastructure that will enable us to deliver a controlled and sustainable expansion,” Goina said.
Meanwhile, 166 PNGDF recruits were removed in September last year (2021) after an investigation revealed that they were not eligible to be recruited based on grounds of over the age of 26, ghost names and medical condition.
PNGDF Chief of Training Col Dickers Esso has said that some may be removed based on oversight.
Esso said, “The discovery of a tuberculosis (TB) infected recruit prompted an investigation to determine how 354 recruited enlisted in the military.
“So they underwent further medical checkup by our medical officers and verification of their education qualifications with the help of the Education Department’s Measurement Services Unit.
“That’s when we discovered that 101 had failed their second medical test, 38 were over the required age required for recruitments (26 years old) and 26 were ghost names, meaning that they didn’t come through the normal recruitment process and somehow ended up at the Goldie River Training Depot.”
Esso said the recruits were about a month into their training when the TB infection was discovered.
“We got all the 354 recruits to have their x-rays and found that 101 had failed their x-ray checkup. This means that they have further internal medical conditions which were nor detected by the first medical checkup which was only urine, sight (eye) and blood tests.”