Promises, promises: a decade of anti-corruption budgets and spending in PNG

dc.contributor.authorWalton, Grant
dc.contributor.authorHushang, Husnia
dc.date.accessioned2021-09-07T04:55:59Z
dc.date.issued2017-08-16
dc.date.updated2020-11-23T10:59:20Z
dc.description.abstractIn Papua New Guinea (PNG), government responses to corruption have received a great deal of media attention over the past decade. This is particularly the case with Investigation Taskforce Sweep (ITFS), with the PNG government initially providing this agency with significant resources and support, only for support to disappear in 2014, when the agency helped coordinate an arrest warrant for Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill. While the trials and tribulations of ITFS have been at the forefront of media attention, they can mask broader trends concerning the state's anticorruption efforts. In this paper we compare the PNG government’s allocations for and spending on five key anti-corruption organisations between 2008 and 2017. Analysing a decade of national budget documents we focus on funding for: the Ombudsman Commission, the National Fraud and Anti-corruption Directorate, ITFS, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Auditor-General’s Office. We show how allocations for these agencies have often exceeded spending, and that combined anti-corruption funding has declined since 2013. We then compare combined spending on these organisations to the Department of Justice and Attorney General and the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary; we show that, over the past decade, funding for the former has grown significantly compared to anti-corruption spending. Finally, we show that as a proportion of the overall PNG budget allocations for and spending on anti-corruption has been on the decline since 2013. These findings suggest that reductions to anti-corruption funding pre-date the dramatic reduction of funding for ITFS after it helped organise an arrest warrant for the prime minister, and that comparatively, over the past five years, anti-corruption agencies have fared worse than other areas of government spending. We discuss what these findings mean for policy makers and activists hoping to see the PNG government strengthen anti-corruption efforts, and address corruption.en_AU
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_AU
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/247406
dc.language.isoen_AUen_AU
dc.publisherDevelopment Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National Universityen_AU
dc.rights© 2017 The Author(s)en_AU
dc.sourceDevpolicy Blogen_AU
dc.source.urihttps://devpolicy.org/promises-promises-decade-anti-corruption-budgets-spending-png-20170816/en_AU
dc.titlePromises, promises: a decade of anti-corruption budgets and spending in PNGen_AU
dc.typeNewspaper/magazine articleen_AU
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access via publisher websiteen_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.issueAugust 16, 2017en_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.placeofpublicationCanberra, Australia
local.contributor.affiliationWalton, Grant, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANUen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationHushang, Husnia, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Developmenten_AU
local.contributor.authoremailu4194888@anu.edu.auen_AU
local.contributor.authoruidWalton, Grant, u4194888en_AU
local.description.embargo2099-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIESen_AU
local.identifier.absfor160509 - Public Administrationen_AU
local.identifier.ariespublicationU1050590xPUB6en_AU
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByU1050590en_AU
local.publisher.urlhttps://devpolicy.org/en_AU
local.type.statusPublished Versionen_AU

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