IS OMBUDSMAN RIGO LUA CORRUPTLY PLAYING POLITICAL FAVOURITES?

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There have been suspicions about Rigo Lua ever since he was appointed Chief Ombudsman by Peter O’Neill in June 2013.   Any political appointee by Peter O’Neill becomes automatically suspect these days given that the Prime Minister has such a solid track record for appointing cronies and lackees to stand by his side and protect him.  The appointment of Acting Police Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki is merely the tip of the iceberg in questionable Peter O’Neill appointments.   He wants a friendly task force by his side and most certainly he doesn’t want to see an activist ombudsman poking around at what he’s been doing.   

When Ombudman Lua started his job then proceeded to sit on a number of prosecution papers for MPs who had never turned in their 2012 election acquittals, inquiring minds began to wonder why the delay on such a straightforward matter.  Then came the back and forth paperwork between the ombudsman and Public Prosecutor Pondrus Kaluwin over O’Neill’s referral for prosecution by a Leadership Tribunal over the strange UBS loan.  Why more than two months elapsed before we all were told that the ombudsman hadn’t done his job properly and provided enough evidence to warrant O’Neill’s prosecution caused a lot ofhead scratching.   Who was really to blame for the foot dragging, Kaluwin or Lua, was the question.  

Now another finger of suspicion is pointing directly at Rigo Lua.  This is because someone he nailed is now speaking out, not with the usual denials or excuses, but with counteraccusations suggesting that Rigo Lua is playing political games in his prosecutions.  

The newest chapter to the story revolves around the ombudsman’s investigation of suspicious payments paid by the Government Printing Office to a business owned by Government Printer Ken Kaiah.   The Ombudsman’s office concluded that Mr Kaiah had improperly engaged his family business, Jacks Investment Limited, to supply Reflex photo copy paper to the Government Printing Office on a quarterly basis in 2009, running up a bill of K150,400.   Ombudsman Lua rightly judged this to be a conflict of interest and abuse of power for personal gains.   The ombudsman recommended for Kaiah’s dismissal.   
Fair enough that the Government Printer was considered to have violated the leadership code.   But was not expected, however, was the Government Printer’s response.   After being notified of the Ombudsman’s findings, Mr Kaiah not only submitted a letter admitting his guilt, but said quite a bit more.   Only now are we beginning to learn the full contents of that letter, when Ken Kaiah sat down to a Post Courier interview.  

Basically Kaiah is accusing the ombudsman of mysteriously overlooking other breaches in the leadership code that Kaiah had committed.  These additional violations relate to the fact that the Government Printer’s personal contract had lapsed, which in turn meant that Kaiah could not legally be the official signatory to the various gazetted government documents that were being printed under government gazettal, which in turn meant that whatever was published under gazettal during that time was not, in fact, legal!    Kaiah elaborated on these additional violations:

  • Illegally publishing a document through the gazettal process that was not accompanied by legally required backup legislation.  The document that Kaiah illegally published nullified another, legal, properly constituted government document that related to the installation of the O’Neill government.

  • Illegally publishing a call-out document for the Defence Force to install the O’Neill government.

  • Illegally continuing to gazette official notices that included the Chief Ombudsman’s appointment and all departmental head positions.

Because Mr Kaiah continued to print the various instruments without having a valid personal contract that made him the official Government Printer, every one of the appointments and personnel instalments is now challengeable in court.  

This includes the appointment of the Prime Minister himself.   

Obviously if the Chief Ombudsman should have done his job thoroughly and prosecuted the Government Printer for any and all infractions of the Leadership Code, without fear or favour.   It appears, however, that the Ombudsman realised that this would have led to a bombshell revelation that even the Prime Minister’s appointment was technically illegal.   Thus, he backed off.  

Has Kaiah really opened up a can of worms with these relevation?   Yes and no.  If O’Neill’s opponents were as devious as the O’Neill himself in trying to find every possible legal delay tactic slow the wheels of justice to a halt, then certainly they could use this revelation to mount new challenges against O’Neill, specifically that he had never legally been appointed Prime Minister through gazettal.  However, most of the PM’s opponents (Belden Namah a possible exception) show a far higher level of professional maturity than O’Neill and it is doubtful that they would take advantage of this opportunity.   In any case, in the end the spirit of the law would take precedence and the PM would be highly unlikely to be removed from power on a technicality.  

What is more important is what this whole affair says about Chief Ombudsman Rigo Lua.  He should have done his job and done a thorough investigation of the Government Printer, rather than pick and choose what he wanted to focus on.   Already, Public Prosecutor Kaluwin has said in so many words that Rigo Lua was sloppy about providing sufficient evidence to prosecute the PM over the UBS loan.   

Is all this really due to sloppiness and incompetence, or is it due to corruption?    Sadly, government officials these days, including judges, can pretend to be incompetent in order to coverup their true motive, which is to obstruct or circumvent justice.  It is very hard to figure out, much less prove what the underlying intent of their actions is.  

The shallow over Mr Rigo Lua has darkened.  Let’s hope that additional information will come forth to explain all the mysterious delays in prosecutions of other public servants, and now this issue.  

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