Ellis to continue work left by disbanded Task Force Sweep

The newly  newly-established Interim Office Against Corruption (IOAC) led by FORMER judge Graham Ellis, intends to continue the work left by the disbanded Investigation Task Force Sweep team.

Mr Ellis  said he was familiar with the work done by the Task Force Sweep and would be meeting with the former chairman, Sam Koim, to make the handover of the investigations to the IOAC as smooth as possible.
He said he was keen to ensure that the IOAC would continue the fight against corruption until the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was set up.
“In the current climate I accept there are all manner of suspicions and all manner of allegations,” he said in a statement yesterday.
“Consistent with the independence I have brought to each of my previous roles in this country I have not communicated with any politician, including the prime minister, in relation to the IOAC.”
The retired Australian judge said that over the next three months, he would be doing three things:
n Continuing the matters commenced by the Task Force Sweep; n receiving any new allegations of corruption; and, n Making recommendations to assist the proposed ICAC.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill disbanded the Task Force Sweep on June 18, saying that it had been “heavily compromised and politicised”. He said the Task Force Sweep’s investigations, primarily the payment of K71.8 million to Paul Paraka Lawyers, would be taken over by the police who would also investigate the disbanded team.
On June 26, he announced that the National Executive Council had decided to set up the IOAC to coordinate anti-corruption investigations and would operate until investigative responsibilities were handed to the ICAC.
Ellis said his appointment as the chair of the IOAC should not come as a surprise as over a period of almost 30 years he had received a number of requests from PNG to:Help train local lawyers from 1985-90; serve a judge based in Rabaul in 1990; chair a leadership tribunal in 1991;  chair a commission of inquiry in 1992; assist in the Office of the Solicitor General in 2008; and,
Serve as a judge in Wabag in 2009. The 1991 leadership tribunal which Ellis chaired convicted then deputy prime minister Ted Diro of 86 counts of corruption and recommended to the then governor-general, Sir Serei Eri, that he be sacked from office and fined K3,300. Sir Serei did not act on the
recommendations and resigned as did Diro.