John Momis talks about his experience as one of the leading politicians from Papua New Guinea’s island province of Bougainville. He recalls the debate over decentralization in the 1970s and explains why Bougainvilleans emerged as the most vocal advocates of a sweeping devolution of powers away from the central government. He recounts the sense of frustration that led to Bougainville’s 1975 secession and the subsequent negotiations that brought the island back into PNG and led to the 1977 law establishing provincial governments. He talks about the problems that began to emerge under the decentralized system during the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as strained intergovernmental relations and an ill-coordinated transfer of administrative responsibilities.
John Momis was one of the leading politicians representing the island province of Bougainville during the first decades of Papua New Guinea’s independence and has regularly been credited as the central ideologue of decentralization in the country. A Catholic priest at the time, he was elected to the national Parliament for Bougainville in 1972 and was appointed chairman of parliamentary committees and de facto chair of the Constitutional Planning Committee by then-Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare. From his position on the committee, he exercised great influence over the formulation of PNG’s constitution and was a fervent proponent of a decentralized system of government. He broke with the national government in 1975 as Bougainville, dissatisfied with the degree of autonomy granted it, issued a unilateral declaration of independence. However, in 1976 he played an instrumental role in reconciling the island with the Port Moresby government. In 1977 he was appointed minister for decentralization. Except for a brief hiatus as minister for minerals and energy in 1980, he held the decentralization portfolio until 1982. As minister for decentralization, he was responsible for increasing governmental capacity at the provincial level and overseeing the central ministries’ implementation of the decentralization policy. In 1985 he served as deputy prime minister and in 1988 he was appointed minister for provincial affairs. At the time of this interview, he had just returned from his position as Papua New Guinea’s ambassador to China and was running for president of Bougainville in the 2010 elections. He won that vote.
Papua New Guinea decentralized power to newly formed provincial governments shortly after declaring independence from Australia in 1975. The process was driven largely by demands for increased autonomy for Bougainville, the most distant of PNG's island provinces and home to what was then one of the world's most lucrative copper mines. The central government sought to keep the island part of PNG by satisfying Bougainvilleans' desire for a greater degree of self-rule without devolving so much power that outright secession seemed feasible. The resulting system of decentralization grew out of this political compromise. Implementation proved difficult, especially when an unforeseen competition developed between the national Parliament and provincial governments. Nevertheless, the highly problematic process of decentralization allowed PNG to preserve its territorial integrity over the crucial first decade of its existence-no small feat for one of the world's most ethnically diverse countries.
Matthew Devlin drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Papua New Guinea during March and April 2010. A separate case study, "Provincial Secessionsits and Decentralization," deals with decentralization in PNG from 1985 to 1995.
In 1995, the government of Papua New Guinea under Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan enacted a sweeping reform of its system of provincial and local government. The reform aimed to address the challenges resulting from the country’s first two decades of decentralized government. Although decentralization was originally intended to provide a degree of autonomy to provinces and local governments in the interest of economic development, by 1985 corruption, nepotism and poor administration at the provincial level had deprived local governments and communities of the resources and skills required to provide health, education and infrastructure services. Chan’s reforms served a dual purpose. They responded to swelling anti-provincial sentiment among national politicians, and they shifted authority to local levels of government at the expense of provinces. The national government encountered substantial resistance to reform proposals, particularly from provincial premiers of the New Guinea Islands, a group of five provinces that saw themselves as geographically and culturally distinct from the mainland. These provinces threatened to secede if the national government’s reforms in any way diminished their autonomy. This policy note outlines the manner in which national political leaders balanced the need for further decentralization of authority to local levels with the challenge of maintaining national unity in the face of provincial secessionists.