UN Development Program Resident Representative, Dirk Wagener has launched the UN Joint Project on Preventing and Countering Corruption in PNG.
The UNDP and UN Office of Drugs & Crime (UNODC) will implement the project together over the next three years in collaboration with and through the Government of Papua New Guinea, including the Department of Justice and the Attorney General.
Mr Wagener thanked Minister for Justice Bryan Kramer for the ongoing partnership of his Ministry with the UN team. Kramer heads the DJAG team that has been leading the national fight to tackle corruption.
UN representatives thanked EU Ambassador to PNG Jernej Videtic for the EU’s commitment to addressing corruption through a project funding of 5.4 million Euro (K18, 467,000.00).
In addition to this funding, this will be directly channeled to the PNG Government in implementing key components of the Government’s National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Plan of Action.
This strategy shows that combating corruption allows for a precondition for national development and ensures fundamentally that people can live peacefully and in good health.
It is evident that corruption has prevented PNG’s development. It not addressed, it will delay PNG’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Wagener said PNG is the first country in the Pacific to give consent to the United Nations Convention against Corruption.