The open workshop on the "Review of PNG's System of Government, Legislature and Service Delivery" hosted by the National Research Institute (NRI) held on the 7th August 2014, was a great insight to suggestive solutions to amplify service delivery in Papua New Guinea.

The presenting Panel included Dr. Scott Flower, Research Team Leader, Professor Ben Reily, Principal investigator and Dr. Mark Brown, Co-Principal Investigator, who guided a series of discussions reviewing and creating theoretical arguments to explore options (in comparison to forms of government models and leadership strategies) used around the world which contribute to how a system of government is run and the appropriate government (development and service delivery) model. The workshop was aimed to collect ideas from an open forum to collect views of the general public, academics and stakeholders to contribute to that of the National Law Reform Commission.

The workshop commenced with a presentation on the preliminary research findings on the political governance and service delivery in Papua New Guinea (PNG): Strategic Review of Current and Alternative Governance Systems. The Researchers were asked to review PNG's Westminster Parliamentary system from 1975 to the present and identify institutional strengths and weaknesses with respect to the system's capacity for service delivery. This element of review specifically considered the international literature on decentralization and sub-nationall governance and the 1977-1995 and 1996-2014 Organic Laws on Provincial Local Level Government (OLPLLG) and the Autonomous Bougainville Government arrangements.

Dr. Scott Flower findings included:

• PNG is great at exercising democracy and not necessarily (incumbent) in service delivery.
• Political alternatives - discussing advantages and disadvantages about using presidential system and parliamentary system
• representation is greater than delivery
• Too flexible and not accountable

Major advantages;

Parliamentary:

• Ability to facilitate the inclusion of all groups within the legislature and the executive
• Flexibility and capacity to adapt to changing circumstances
• cheques and balances

Presidential systems

• directly elected
• national unifying figure
• higher degree of choice
• stability of office and continuity in terms of public policy

Disadventages include;

• No real checks on executives
• Lack of flexibility
• Poor track records to issues of democracy

Also discussed were ways to evaluate the international evidence regarding the sustainability of a Presidential system and Bicameralism for PNG as potential alternative governance arrangements and whether these alternatives are likely to improve service delivery. 3 of the main examples of Bicameralism include;

1. Representation of states and [provinces (eg.USA)
2. house of review (eg.UK)
3. hybrid (eg. Australia)

However issues PNG could face include;

• Power asymmetry (lower vs. upper chamber)
• size
• Territorial/Geographic unit
• Ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural diversity
• Different electoral representations (lower and upper chambers)

In evaluating the international evidence on the relationships between systems of political governance and service delivery responsive to the questions Is PNG system of governance affecting service delivery? and Are these factors clearly associated with poor service delivery - YES.

PNG can be said to be previlliged to be governed by a parliamentary system that exercises full democracy, which is more efficient in representation yet lagging in inclusive service delivery to ALL Papua New Guinea. It was concluded from the study that poor service delivery is associated with:

• low credibility of parties (low likelihood that they can deliver promises)
• low political distinctiveness (parties cannot be distinguished on policies, parties are not strongly motivated to create oversight over incumbents)
• frequent coalition building

Key Findings found that the level of Service Delivery can be distinguished by the following;

• inadequate staff, poor staff quality, presence of political appointees, poor financial management and record keepers and poor allocation of service resource.
• broken relationships between politicians and citizens, ineffective oversight of budgeting and delivery, poor performers experiences no consequences and lack of incentives for better performances.

One way to approach this (as agreed by many of the stakeholders that attended) is decentralization and citizen participation in oversight by key deliverers of better service quality. Moreover, increased accountability and responsiveness to citizen needs, increased political stability and greater democratic competition, greater investment in citizens prioritized services ( e.g.. water and sewerage), more participatory decision making and use of customary methods. More beneficial is for strong media and freedom of information (as exercised in PNG).

During Q&A it was expressed by participants that there are too many visions that PNG has created to look forward too that where we want to go (future planning ) is being clouded by where we are actually going! We know the problems and we have the answers, answers that are guided by our core development goals and principles, in the constitution of our country which were aspirations of our forefathers (MTDGs). We have a good system of government  its just that we are lazy and have a system capacitated by too many leaders and no followers. As stated by Chief Ombudsman, Mr. Rigo Lua,  "No matter how good a system is if it is being led by a corrupt leader, the system automatically falls into corruption" thus demeaning productive and widespread service delivery. Its not the model of system that needs to change, its the people and type of leadership that should.

From this a representative report with all comments and insights of stakeholders, partners, public shall be compiled by NRI and handed over to the National Law Reform Commission to create a draft bill and handover to the government as stated by Eric Kwa.

The National Law Reform Commission invites the public to leave comments at thier office (Heritage Rumana, 2nd floor, Waigani, Port Moresby) for inclusion in the bill as it is a representation of the people. The Bill is aimed to be completed and a draft presented to government at the end of October 2014.