O’Neill relatives involved in alleged parliament house scam
18 February 2019
FRANCIS NII
KUNDIAWA – A stunning report by Papua New Guinea’s no nonsense corruption fighter Bryan Kramer MP yesterday suggested that an K8.5 million bill for damage to parliament was a scam to defraud the state by people related to prime minister Peter O’Neill.
The damage was caused by security personnel who laid siege to parliament when they were not paid allowances following last year’s APEC conference in Port Moresby.
The government decided to pay the assailants K300 ‘sorry money’ in addition to the delayed allowance but last week finance minister James Marape said the government was looking at deducting the K300 allowance as security force members’ contribution to offset the damage to parliament caused in the rampage.
An investigation by Kramer into the K8.5 million damage bill tabled by acting speaker Jeffrey Komal and approved by MPs showed the bill was fraught with irregularities and inflated costs.
Of the K8.5 million approved, K3.3 million was for the repairs of elevators and K2.2 million was for access control systems and water coolers.
Kramer reported: “I carried out an inspection of the lifts and confirmed [there] was no damage caused during the attack on parliament. A company connected to O’Neill put in a false claim with the plan to profit from it by blaming the security forces.
“These costs are nothing but a con job,” Kramer said.
While confirming there was damage to the access control system, Kramer said the K1.537 million cost was highly inflated. He said the cost estimate should have been K275, 000.
The video phones cost K82, 000 in 2017 but the claim was for K607,000 - a 640% increase in less than two years.
The replacement cost of the four water coolers was K88, 000 which Kramer said was absurd.
The company engaged by parliament to carry out inspection and damage assessment, Port Moresby Lift Services, is said to be owned by prime minister Peter O’Neill’s cousin Peter [Oscar] Yamuna from Ialibu-Pangia.
It has operated from a small office on the second floor of Parliament House rent free since 2011 and planned to defraud the state of K3.3 million for elevators that were not damaged by members of the armed forces.
Simac Ltd, a company registered in Kundiawa and 50-50 shareholding by Mack Banai and Simeon Wai, engaged to carry out an independent inspection and damage assessment of the elevators, also came under fire by Bryan Kramer.
“So a company based in Kundiawa is now carrying out inspections and damage assessment of lift systems in the nation’s capital. Correct me if I am wrong I wasn’t aware elevators even existed in Kundiawa,” Kramer said.
This is another serious corruption allegation involving O’Neill and Kramer’s report, which went viral on Facebook, had many readers asking the prime minister for an immediate explanation.
The nation’s corruption watchdogs, the Ombudsmen Commission and the Police Fraud And Criminal Investigation Unit, now need to carry out an immediate investigation and make sure the people involved are promptly prosecuted.
Sorry Francis for my treating the topic so light-heartedly. In fact it was either that or bloody well throw the PC at the wall. It just goes on and on and the evil greedy hearts of these corrupt elites know that there are more important things for PNG citizens to be worried about like footie or street sellers.
In fact it is the corruption you highlight that leads to more and more of the folk from the Moresby settlements having to turn to street selling to exist. I wonder if kids are still selling single cigarettes to car drivers at traffic lights?
Sadly too many times a week I read of the effects of this blatant theft from the nations wealth. I see dangerous eroded roads, rotting plan bridges, abandoned aid posts, lack of basic medicines, dirt floor classrooms. Have these spivs no spark of humanity for improving the lives of their fellow citizens.
PNG has mined so much mineral wealth; clear-felled million of cubic metres of rainforest logs; exported 400 shipments of LNG; yet poverty and lack of infrastructure blight everyday life of a nation with only 8 million people.
One of my daughters remarked on a documentary about Fiji when she saw miles of sealed road and the large numbers of tourists that visit the small nation,”Why is PNG so backward Dad?”
Posted by: Arthur Williams | 18 February 2019 at 07:35 PM
Thank you gentlemen for your well intended jokes. While some of us are fighting corruption at our own levels, it is very disheartening to see Australian politicians and businessmen colluding with PNG counterparts in promoting corruption in this country like the security on Manus involving Paladin and Peter O'Neill/Marabe and others.
The Australian government should help PNG to get rid of this pernicious disease called corruption and not allowing its leaders and citizens to promote and perpetuate it.
Posted by: Francis Nii | 18 February 2019 at 01:31 PM
Yes, Arthur, at that rate the 'lift' would have kept going, burst through the roof and was last seen disappearing in the direction of the Highlands. It's hard to imagine what it contained.
Posted by: Paul Oates | 18 February 2019 at 09:40 AM
Francis. The finesse of 'creative corruption'.
Posted by: William Dunlop | 18 February 2019 at 09:03 AM
Francis this lifts corruption to a new level.
Posted by: Arthur Williams | 18 February 2019 at 07:05 AM