Five years to deliver, and the job is killing them

 

by MICHAEL J. PASSINGAN

Heart attacks and strokes form the clearest pattern in the deaths of PNG’s MPs. Maprik MP Gabriel Kapris died of a sudden heart attack in Port Moresby in August 2023. A month later, Dei MP Steven Pim was pronounced dead on arrival at Pacific International Hospital after a heart attack. In February 2024, Education Minister Jimmy Uguro died in his sleep in a Wewak hotel, with doctors suspecting cardiac arrest, after a full day of official school visits. In the previous Parliament, high blood pressure was given as the cause for Goilala MP William Samb, and a stroke for North Bougainville MP William Nakin.

Not every death fits. Deputy Prime Minister Sam Basil was killed in a head-on crash on the Bulolo Highway. Kerema MP Richard Mendani was lost to COVID-19. Sir Julius Chan was 85 and had been ill for a long time. Cancer took Sir Mekere Morauta, and Maso Karipe died under treatment in Brisbane after a year-long illness. The cardiac cluster still points at something the condolence messages skip: the job itself.

An MP gets five years. The Constitution sets the general election within three months before the fifth anniversary of the last return of writs, and history says 40 to 50 per cent of sitting members will lose. Even 2022, a good year for incumbents, removed 35 of them. Every MP walks into Parliament already campaigning, judged on roads, classrooms and cash that voters can see before the next poll.

Cash demands add a second load. Western Highlands Governor Paias Wingti told people in Mt Hagen in 2013 to stop asking MPs for money, and The National noted that the expectation went back to independence. Western Governor Taboi Awi Yoto wrote in 2018 that his people assumed MPs held money for every personal, family or group request. An MP who says no risks paying for it at the ballot box.

Distance adds a third. Many districts are reached by road or small aircraft, and noted last year that medical care is not always within reach on those trips. Uguro died away from home, on duty in another member’s electorate.

Prime Minister James Marape saw the danger in 2024, urging MPs to look after their health given the pressure and scrutiny they face around the clock. Since then the 11th Parliament has buried at least four more members: Chan, Morobe Governor Luther Wenge, Telefomin MP Solan Mirisim and, on 30 September, Daulo MP Ekime Gorosahu.

MPs carry responsibility too. They have what most Papua New Guineans never will: a parliamentary salary, Port Moresby’s private hospitals and treatment in Brisbane. The pattern points to men who put the electorate first and their own health last. High blood pressure and heart disease give little warning. A member who skips a check-up to open another classroom is gambling with his district as well as his life, because when he dies the seat falls empty.

Their risk is the country’s risk at its sharpest. A Papua New Guinean man aged 30 has roughly a 40 per cent chance of dying from heart disease, cancer, diabetes or chronic lung disease before 70. PNG Institute of Medical Research data show deaths in towns are about twice as likely as rural deaths to come from heart disease, stroke or diabetes. MPs spend much of their term in Port Moresby.

Parliament controls the remedy. It could make an annual health screening compulsory and confidential for every member, and build rest into sitting and travel schedules. Parties could treat a sick member’s recovery as more urgent than a ribbon-cutting. Voters could stop treating their MP as a personal bank.

Twenty members in two Parliaments is a warning. That is 20 MPs in 10 years, No five-year mandate is worth a member’s life, and no district is served by a seat left empty.