PNG Opposition leader Namah Refers PM Marape Associate for Fraud Investigations and Cites for aiding and abetting
PNG Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Belden Norman Namah has taken legal action against Mr. Andy Peperaija Pape, a Special Constable and so-called accountant who audited the first disbursement of K24 million COVID-19 funds.
Mr Namah, in the same action, cited the Bank South Pacific and members of the Special Police Forensic and Criminal Investigation Team in the same case for aiding and abetting in possible fraud and money laundering.
Mr Namah has made a Supreme Court Application under Constitution Section 18 (1) seeking orders that one Andy Peperaija Pape, a Special Constable and so-called accountant, breached the Constitution while permitting, facilitating or receiving payments from several sources in PNG as well as from an Australian company; and that the Bank South Pacific in permitting, facilitating and transacting these payments aided and abetted in the breach of the Constitution.
Mr Namah further asked the court to consider actions against the following:
• Police Commissioner David Manning,
• Fly River Provincial Government and Western Provincial Administrator,
Robert Alphonse Kaiyun,,
• Businessman David Rakadui,
• FTI Consulting Australia Pty Ltd and the said Pape and Bank South Pacific.
Mr Namah asked the court to declare that he (Mr Namah) has standing to make the application.
Mr Namah submits the following material facts:
On August 19th, 2020 Commissioner of Police, David Manning established the Special Police Forensic and Criminal Investigation Team (SPECIT).
Membership of the group comprised Manning as Chairman,
Pape as Special Constable and accountant and several other detectives.
All except Pape are serving members of the Police Force.
Pape alone was made a Special Constable whose terms of engagement are determined by the Police Commissioner after consultation and approval by the Salaries and Conditions Monitoring Commission (SCMC).
No records exist of SCMC approval for Pape’s engagement and he is not registered with the Accountants Registration Board of PNG.
Payments were made to Pape in varying amounts by the Department of PM and NEC, the Fly River Provincial Government and a certain 2499/icp which has since been identified as FTI Consulting Australia Pty Ltd firm of Australia. The term ‘icp’ may refer to a crypto currency service known as Internet Computer Price .
In 2020 the Marape government engaged FTI to conduct forensic investigation into the use of donor funds in the fight against COVID-19
Since FTI could not attend in PNG because of COVID-19 restrictions, the then Police Minister Bryan Kramer and Commissioner Manning engaged Pape, an accountant and associate of Prime Minister Marape. Kramer said at the time that the audit was undertaken pro-bono, a term which means free of charge.
Pape handed his final audit report in July 2020 as a FTI document when it clearly was not.
When the matter went before the PNG Fraud and Anti-Corruption Squad, the squad sought advice from the Solicitor General regarding the report.
The Solicitor General advised that the Pape report was “unlawful and cannot be relied on because it was not lawfully authorized by the Auditor General”, the only lawful authority to carry out such functions.
The Fraud Squad could not make any arrests and the report was a complete waste of public funds.
In September 2020 Pape Accountants began to receive payments from FTI and records show that to date it received K1.9 million.
Pape then made payments including:
1. K99,500 to a party in PNG identified as ‘principal’,
2. K89,033.78 to ‘Consultancy’,
3. K179,736.55 to ‘Overseas Supply’,
4. K25,075.23 to ‘Rex Paki’, and
5. 143,637.60 to ‘it to Australia’.
The Leader of the Opposition said these payments are highly suspicious as they were made by a member of the Special Police Forensic and Criminal Investigation Team and “gives rise to the possibility that they are corrupt”.
Mr Namah said: “Who is the Principal’? Who are the ‘Overseas Suppliers’ and what goods and services did they supply? To whom were the ‘Consultancy payments’ made?
“The above and further details which I have tendered in court indicate highly questionable and possibly corrupt activities operating under the very eyes of the Prime Minister, the former Police Minister Kramer and Police Commissioner Manning.
“They must know about this and possibly condoned these activities.
“Large sums of money were transferred back and forth between Australia and PNG which should quite easily have raised the attention and suspicion of BSP. That it has not raised questions or preventive action indicate deliberate complicity raising quite reasonable concerns about aiding and abetting the fraudulent transactions.
“Australia and PNG bio-security have been compromised.
“I have laid complaints with the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate, the Ombudsman Commission, and the Australian Federal Police. I shall be writing to the Central Bank, the Port Moresby Stock Exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange to also investigate BSP’s complicity in this matter.
“There is more than meets the eye in this issue. This Prime Minister who runs government with his DNA alone and not a single policy, who claims to beat corruption but condones it in practice and who has spent billions without a single project to show for it, must provide explanations for this.
“I have said from the start that this Prime Minister is a fake but Papua New Guineans, including almost 80 of their MPs would not believe it. Now it is all coming out.
“The BSP is the pride of PNG as the biggest bank in PNG which is now spreading its wings in the Pacific and Asia.
“To be implicated in matters of financial fraud and money laundering is serious and the current board and management must show cause why they should not be removed?”
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