Table of Contents
Reforming the bureaucracies bequeathed by departing colonial powers has been a ubiquitous item on the policy agendas of newly independent countries. The contents of the policies have changed over the years and have varied between countries and political regimes. But the declared commitment to public sector reform has remained constant. By contrast, implementation of the reforms has often remained weak, leading to persistent failures or disappointment with the results (Polidano 2001; Hulme and Polidano 1999; Langseth et al. 1995; Kiggundu 1998; Manning 2001).
Papua New Guinea appears to have conformed to this pattern since independence in 1975. A promising start with public sector reform was soon overtaken by policy failure. A succession of reports and publications has traced and lamented declining efficiency and effectiveness in public sector performance (World Bank 1983, 1995, 1999; AusAID 1992, 1994, 1996; Turner 1997; PDP 1997). Conventional explanations blame inadequate bureaucratic capacity or inappropriate donor solutions. Such accounts have validity at one level of analysis, but as one digs deeper another explanation of policy failure is uncovered. That is politics. The hypothesis of this study is that chances of reform failure increase when important sections of the political elite see no direct benefits accruing to themselves or their supporters from public sector reform. While they may wish to control the public sector, they may not wish to pursue reforms which would lead to better performing and more accountable public institutions. Changing reform menus may have little effect in such situations where local political dynamics determine the outcomes of the policy process. For similar reasons, decision-makers may choose to ignore lessons that are known. Building bureaucratic capacity in such circumstances may be a dubious policy, as that capacity may be ignored or misdirected instead of being harnessed to serve the public interest.
Just before independence in 1975, Michael Somare, the prime minister-to-be, expressed concern that ‘the public service systems inherited from Colonial Administration have been unsuitable for a self-governing and eventually independent Papua New Guinea’ (Somare 1974, 4). He noted that the public service was an alien apparatus designed for alien purposes. It had an inappropriate modern technology and was too expensive (ibid.; Ballard 1981). Reform was undoubtedly needed, said Somare, but incrementally, to avoid undue disruption.
Paradoxically, the period started off with a piece of radical reform. The state was restructured through a devolutionary form of decentralization. Michael Somare had originally dispensed with the Constitutional Planning Committee’s recommendation for decentralization, but a secessionist move and other micronationalist movements exerted strong political pressure to follow the devolutionary path. The 1977 Organic Law on Provincial Government gave elected provincial assemblies the responsibility for a range of functions mostly involving service delivery. But the centre still retained some controls. The purse strings were held by the Department of Finance while staff of the new departments of the provinces kept their status as national public servants. Central agencies were often unenthusiastic about decentralization while many public servants were reluctant participants in the process. By 1979, Somare was voicing concern about the implementation of provincial government and in 1985 he wanted a national referendum on its future. Other parliamentarians joined the supporting chorus, possibly through anxiety over the growing power of provincial politicians.
The other leading policies of public sector reform were incremental in nature: localization, public sector growth, training and restructuring. They were non-threatening and elicited widespread support from public servants and politicians.
Localization was the replacement of foreign public sector employees by Papua New Guinean staff. The policy had been instituted before independence. Post-independence localization extended the process upwards and also looked to the total elimination of lower-level foreigners in a short space of time. There is some dispute over the number of expatriates employed in the public service and hence no agreed figure on the rate of localization. Dwivedi (1986) counted 4135 expatriate public servants at independence declining to 2480 in 1985. Another study located 6730 expatriates in 1976 reducing to 3000 in 1985 (Goodman et al. 1985). Whatever the numbers, the policy was popular with Papua New Guinean public servants as it opened up numerous promotional opportunities. In financial circles it was applauded because of savings from expensive expatriate salaries. However, one commentator pointed to an ‘administrator development lag’ (McNamara 1983). He thought the localization process had proceeded too rapidly with the new incumbents of executive positions often lacking the experience and qualifications to undertake their roles effectively.
Public sector growth was another popular policy. The prevailing argument supporting this was enshrined in the Eight Aims which guided Papua New Guinea’s national development strategy: ‘Government control and involvement in those sectors of the economy where control is necessary to achieve the desired kind of development’ (PNG 1976, 15). This justified extending the range of government activities and the numbers of staff engaged in some existing ones. At independence there were approximately 50,000 public servants and another 15–20,000 labourers and employees of statutory authorities (Turner 1991). This represented about 40 per cent of formal employment. By 1981, there were 55,000 public servants. The government began to feel the economic pinch and in 1983 reported that ‘Continuing international recession has reduced government revenues…[and] the scale of the adjustment problem is far more serious than previously anticipated’ (PNG 1983, 1–2). A retrenchment program was introduced with aim of removing 3,300 funded positions and their ‘ineffective’ occupants (Turner 1991, 98). The government also justified the policy in terms of the ‘very large number of public servants per capita’ (PNG 1983, 87), an assertion questioned by some authors (Dwivedi 1986; Bailasi 1990; Turner 1991). The initial experiment with downsizing was not successful in reducing the size of the public service but it did halt expansion.
Training was a major thrust of Papua New Guinea’s post-independence strategy to improve its public administration. Training was equated with capacity-building. Knowledge, skills and values were learned by new and existing staff and then put into practice to make for better organizational performance. The Administrative College (Adcol), an arm of the Department of the Public Services Commission, was given major responsibility for the training function. It ran a wide range of pre-service and in-service courses of varying durations covering fields including district administration, public administration, social development, financial management, accounting, general management, local government and librarianship. But concern grew that administrative training had failed to bring about the promised improvements in public sector management. One report concluded that Adcol was characterized by inefficient resource deployment and courses which were no longer appropriate (Turner 1985). However, training was still perceived as a valid strategy for public sector reform, and additional reports recommended better resource management and increased investment in training (Gibson 1983; Creedon 1984).
The final strategy of public sector reform in the immediate post-independence era was restructuring. This involved amputating sections of departments and then reattaching them to other departments or parts of departments. Reshuffling heads of departments and statutory bodies often accompanied this process. What was occurring in Papua New Guinea under the name of restructuring actually left the structural features of organizations largely intact. They did not become less bureaucratic. Indeed, the basic organizational dysfunctions were preserved but were now accompanied by a sense of insecurity and lack of continuity in leadership.
The first decade of independence was characterized by an incremental strategy of public sector reform. The reform and capacity-building activities threatened neither basic organizational forms and practices nor leading officials. Indeed it was a time of great opportunity for officials to get ahead through localization and public sector expansion. However, concerns were being expressed that all was not well with the system of public sector management. The ToRobert Report of 1979 found that Papua New Guinea’s administrative system was not responding effectively to national plans and objectives. Capacity problems in public sector management were identified as the culprit and the incremental approach to reform was reaffirmed in the report (PNG 1979). The resulting Administrative Improvement Programme contained various familiar human resource management items on staff development and training, manpower statistics and assessment, job evaluation, documentation of simplification of procedures, staff assessment and appraisal, and career streaming (PNG 1980). There is little record of action and achievement in these or other areas of concern identified in the ToRobert Report. The first World Bank report devoted to public administration in Papua New Guinea reiterated the issues raised in the ToRobert Report but described public administration in Papua New Guinea as a ‘generally well-functioning system. In particular, [there were] strong and carefully controlled budget procedures’ (World Bank 1983, 1).