Papua New Guinea faces a governance crisis as Department of National Planning and Monitoring (DNPM) powers shift to National Monitoring and Coordination Authority (NMCA). Nomane warns this could disrupt development planning and accountability. Read the full analysis and decide for yourself.
MARAPE’S POWER GRAB OVER DNPM IS AN ELECTORAL AMBUSH ON THE NATION’S DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE
By Hon. James Nomane – Friday, 8 May 2026.
Papua New Guinea stands at a dangerous crossroads. The Prime Minister has issued a directive to rip apart the Department of National Planning and Monitoring (DNPM) — the institution mandated by law to coordinate and track our national development. Its core functions are to be subsumed into the National Monitoring and Coordination Authority (NMCA): an entity without an Act of Parliament, without legislative mandate, and without institutional credibility. This is not reform.
The Opposition calls on Prime Minister Marape to immediately revoke this directive. DNPM must remain where it is to fulfil its statutory functions and anchor MTDP IV and Vision 2050. Its institutional knowledge, bilateral relationships, technical capacity, and legal mandate make it indispensable; not interchangeable.
The NMCA was established by executive decision just last year. It has no M&E division, no M&E staff, and no capacity to absorb fifty years of planning architecture overnight. Yet Treasury has been directed to redirect all DNPM budget allocations to this untested body to “manage” the Public Investment Program (PIP) 12 months before the 2027 elections.
Peter Drucker warned that “the bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle.” Leadership failure produces institutional failure. What we are witnessing is an electoral ambush on the nation’s development architecture. NMCA was manufactured at whim to reward loyalists and evade accountability for over K120 billion in total government expenditure since 2019, a national debt stock approaching K66 billion, and a litany of governance failures that have left PNG’s development indices among the worst in the Pacific.
The country is undergoing FATF greylisting reforms. The very technocrats at DNPM who understand AML/CFT compliance and cross-agency coordination are being displaced by political appointees at the NMCA. We are dismantling the engine at the precise moment we need maximum institutional horsepower. Every day we remain on the FATF greylist costs this country foreign investment and credibility. This decision makes that exit harder, not easier.
DNPM is the custodian of our plans, our investments, and our promises to future generations. DNPM is not the cause of our problems or a sacrificial lamb for political expediency. To gut it through a thirty-day administrative edict, and morph it into NMCA, is to betray Vision 2050 and dismantle MTDP IV. Development cannot be administered through improvisation. Nations are built through strong institutions.
The Opposition issues three unconditional demands: revoke this directive immediately; enforce management within public service for M&E rather than trying to reinvent the wheel; and dismantle the patronage machinery that has replaced merit as the governing principle of our public institutions. These are the minimum obligations of responsible governance.
DNPM is not the problem. Leadership is. The government must act now.
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