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| Gilbert Hamambi |
[ST note: This essay was
released by Gilbert Hamambi as a file on Sharp Talk last year just prior to the
National Elections. The admins consider it a noteworthy paper for publication
in the blog. It can help us to look forward to addressing some issues come
2017. And looking forward to the 2017 elections is probably a good idea even
this early in the term. Note the views expressed in the article do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Sharp Talk admin team.]
In this coming national general election and for some future more
elections to come, corruptible ‘kaikai man’ will flourish. Regardless, this
write up is a consolation piece to our many intending candidates who are
expected to have budgeted surplus assets to waste in the election. These
aspiring leaders must be encouraged to mindfully share their wealth as election
time in Papua New Guinea is the long awaited and highly anticipated ‘kaikai’
season.
A leader in the general PNG mindset is someone who is in a position of
power and is well resourced to wield influence. Personal wealth is a popular
power base from which influence emanates. Wealthy leaders can propagate
positive influence by skillfully distributing their personal wealth. But there
now seems to be an ironic perception of individuals who ascend to a position of
influence by expending wealth. When personal wealth is openly used to buy
influence the public keeps quiet about it. However, when public wealth is
expended it readily draws audible skepticism and resentful condemnation with
bribery being the habitual label for such acts. When then is influencing using
redistribution of wealth not corruption? How sardonic is this when PNG is still
largely a communal society where wealth amassed is meant to be reciprocally
redistributed but this very act and opportunity for trickling wealth down is
discouraged with negative branding and off-putting connotations.
We should not blindly follow the West. The practice in Melanesia, and
that has been for thousands of years, is that wealth is accumulated to be
redistributed to gain influence. We may be new to modern conventions and
charters of good governance and leadership but we are not new to the art of
influencing others to do our bidding. If we stop to reflect from a ‘balcony
perspective’ I think Papua New Guineans generally accept and irresistibly
participate openly in ‘buying of influence’ which, by now, should be an
apparent and simple truth. Truth is something the West does not have monopoly
over.
Expounding further on this hypocrisy is that we are quick to scrutinize
the redistribution of public wealth but inattentively praiseful of private
donations. When a private citizen acts to narrow the gap between the rich and
the poor, the haves and the have nots, we do not seem to have a problem with
such charitable acts. Rarely do we stop to probe the intent of the benefactors’
seemingly random acts of kindness when wealth is redistributed from private
coffers to gain influence. Nevertheless, in most instances and in the minds of
most beneficiaries, obligations are created. These, as often is the case, are
expected to be discharged somehow and those who willfully avoid discharging
such obligations are now commonly called ‘kaikai man’ in the Sepik region of
the country.
This ‘kaikai man’ mentality when coupled to the sarcasm of having to
spend private wealth to gain influence becomes precariously evident when
applied to political campaigning for public office. Private citizens who ‘give
freely’ from private funds to gain influence in order to secure votes and get
elected into public offices are at a personal risk of vainly applying their
resources when ‘kaikai man’ thrive in election periods. The consolation from
labeling such charitable acts as corrupt would be the rendering of its negative
overtone by contesting corruption in this context as an envious term
maliciously used to smear a successful private citizen. For all fairness, and
when the intent is clear, there should be no guilty conscience when
redistributing honestly attained wealth to gain influence into public offices.
Wealth, after all, is meant to be amassed and trickled down to the always
welcoming ‘kaikai public’.
Wealth amassed through sheer hard work, entrepreneurship and business
acumen and later masterfully shared to gain influence and access to public
office or remain in public office is not bribery nor is it corruption but it is
Our Way of redistributing wealth.
Intentional sharing of honestly attained personal wealth to gain and
spread constructive influence is not wrong but intending candidates in this
election are reminded to be mindful of the corruptible ‘kaikai man’ who abound.
Ah yes, but how many are distributing their own wealth? And even those who would seem to be, are often rich because of dubious practices whereby they have robbed their own people (of this there are many examples). On the other hand, many of rich ' kai kai men' in parliament have helped themselves to the money in government coffers and then renamed it as their own. It's no use trying to apply a different set of laws to a system that they were never intended for then wonder why the system isn't working - because it's not. Gilbert, you need to trumpet your theory amongst those dying of preventable and curable diseases and tell them how those entrusted with their governance and welfare are only doing what comes naturally in PNG - enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow man.
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