Abusing compensation claims a dangerous trend in PNG

The culture of compensation is becoming a lucrative business in PNG today and as such, drastic measures need to be taken immediately in order to prevent the spreading of this practice.
It may be a little too late to stop it from spreading into other parts of this country as it is now prevalent nationwide.
However, it is not too late for the government to put a complete stop to it before it becomes an accepted money-making avenue.
It is sad to see that societies, which do not practise this culture before, are beginning to assimilate the ideology of this phenomenon and are not practising it too.
The reason is it is the fastest way of getting free money from the government, a corporate entity or a group of individuals that the compensation claim is lodged against.
I am not referring to claims that are genuine against the State, which may be legally authorised by the competent court of law resulting from damages or wrongdoings committed by individuals or agents of the State.
These are legitimate claims and therefore, the government or the entity responsible has the duty to compensate the claimants.
However, individuals or groups of people demanding compensation from the State because a pig has been killed while crossing the road or because a drainage system may cause flood that damages the food garden are examples of fraudulent claims that are aimed at soliciting funds from the State.
There are also instances where circumstances are intentionally planned and executed just to claim money from the State, a group of individuals or an organisation.
I was once told of a situation where a mentally-retarded person was deliberately pushed onto the road by his own clan’s men and was killed by an on-coming vehicle.
Compensation amount lodged for the dead person went over half a million and the reason given to justify that amount was that the deceased was a final year law student at UPNG and so on and so forth.
Therefore, the whole tribe needed to be compensated for their loss of asset.
Believe it or not, but such scenario reflects the current trend of thinking in what I term ‘commercialisation of compensation’, whereby citizens become engaged in earning money by way of lodging compensation claims.
Please, my fellow Papua New Guineans, let us do away with the compensation mentality and ask not what this country can do for us, but what we can do for this great country.

James Pepi
Port Moresby