Dear Members and Friends,
Welcome to another issue of our quarterly newsletter and certainly one in less auspicious and uncertain times. As the inevitable threat of COVID-19 and the Delta variant have continued the ravage our communities, the need for transparency and accountability in the face of our buckling public health system is now more critical than ever.
As population centers around the country have begun to contemplate plunging into further total lock down, it has become clear that more difficult decisions must be made in the coming weeks, to control the impact on our communities. While our team has continued to closely monitor the National COVID-19 Emergency Response effort, we have also initiated several pre-emptive measures over the course of this past quarter.
In an effort to motivate a stronger collective commitment to integrity at both the national and sub-national level. Despite the ongoing global pandemic, support for initiatives such as our Promoting Anti-corruption & Integrity Strategies (PAIS) project have shown a very encouraging upward trend towards the end of this quarter. As five key national agencies have now signed Memorandae of Understanding with our team, for the development of internal anti-corruption strategies.
We also successfully executed our ACE Program in Bougainville, as well as the first in a series of planned provincial outreach deployments under our Anti-Corruption Help Desk and Building Elections Integrity through Partnership projects. We also launched our Accountability Scorecard this quarter. A document which has now prompted greater scrutiny of financial accountability in the PNG public sector, and uncovered a trend of negligence and the need for stronger legislation and enforcement.
While our TIPNG board and management have temporarily suspended all travel for our team due to the general increase in COVID-19 transmissions around the country, we are currently exploring alternatives for physical outreach in the likelihood that travel conditions
do not improve. As with everything else, we remain optimistic, but continue to plan for contingencies as we go along.
Yours in partnership,
Arianne Kassman, CEO
