How a serial liar and a court declared bankrupt/conman are selling off PNG Power

By JAMES PARAKISAN

The bankruptcy of PPL under Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and State Enterprises Minister Ben Micah should not surprise anybody in Papua New Guinea.  Virtually all State-Owned Enterprises are in the same condition, destroyed by political interference, corruption and incompetence.
When the illegal and unnecessary State of  Emergency in the power sector was announced, it handed personal control of PPL to Minister Micah - himself a bankrupt and konman.
That is like putting a vampire in charge of the Red Cross Blood Bank. Why was this done - there is no rational explanation available?
While he has been Minister for State Enterprises - and Minister responsible for ensuring that the PM gets his cut from as many deals as possible -  Micah has become very rich, with overseas assets including properties, vehicles and bank accounts.

In the meantime SOE service standards decline and the people suffer. But the Prime Minister and his favorite Minister - Micah was formerly the PM’s chef of staff - could not care less as long as taxpayers’ money keeps filling up their pockets.
Here are some examples of how Micah steals from the people of Papua New Guinea..

While Minister in charge of IPBC, Micah has abused his personal corporate debit card continuously and illegally. He should be charged with theft and fraud over this alone.

In one period he withdrew K8000 in cash with no acquittals. (Cash withdrawals are a prohibited use of IPBC debit/credit cards and all transactions are required to be acquitted).

In another period mystery cash deposits of approximately K22,000 occurred on his IPBC card, with no explanation or details supplied to IPBC.

Micah has also fraudulently used IPBC funds to pay for travel to and from his electorate, and for electorate business.

His travel expenses - including travel claims for his wife, Lynn Dora Micah - are sky-high. One lot of travel claims submitted to IPBC was for K215,000, and another for $US90,000 for use of the Falcon jet.

Micah also bills IPBC for luxury accommodation in Port Moresby and elsewhere, including suites at the Grand Papua and other places that grass-roots Papua New Guineans can only dream about.

Outrageous funding proposals submitted to NEC by Micah have been rejected out of hand. One submission included K450,000 for the refurbishment of his IPBC office, including a gym and gym equipment.

The same submission also sought K800,000 for cars and K2 million for his personal advisors.

In addition, it proposed spending a further K73 million for advisers and K10 million on consultants, including Arthur Somare and Veronica Maladina, for work on illegal MOUs with various Chinese and Singapore companies.

Payments to one firm, Resource & Logistic Solutions, owned by his known cronies Arthur Somare, Daire Vele, Lars Mortensen and Nathan Chang, totalled K3.4 million

The State Solicitor wrote to Mr Micah and to IPBC saying that some of the consultancy contracts were illegal and improper.

Micah has also been involved in three notorious schemes that ripped off Western Province trust funds, one a K15 million telecommunications scam, another a K8 million deal to buy a barge and a third to repair the MV Danaya, owned by FRPG.

Others have drained the coffers of New Ireland Province and have involved the gross abuse of his DSIP funds.

Micah’s associates in these deals include his son Leyton Tamiropi and Gabriel Magyari, through a number of shady companies including Micom Ltd, Manton Group, Saturn Ltd and Creative Solutions. Micah was also intimately involved in the Paraka scandal on behalf of the Prime Minister.

He along with another Prime Ministerial associate Daniel Korimbao, helped write the infamous letter signed by the Prime Minister authorising the illegal payments.

He and Korimbao when to the Airways Bar one afternoon in January 2012 and gave it to the Prime Minister, who duly signed it.


Can we Papua new Guineans stop and think clearly and stop being cheated by politicians like Ben Micah, goodness me, when he was Kavieng MP from 1992-1997 he completely corrupted his district support grant of K1.5 million he was receiving then.
Those in in Kavieng never saw that money, its benefits nor acquittals. When Micah was MP he traveled home 5 times in 5 years to spend Christmas with his wives not his people.

1. During his term he bought a new house at Ela beach costing K1.2 million.where did he get the money from?  He abused his DSG funds by giving to his family members and political cronies like Tony Matautu and Gillis who in turn gave it back to him to buy the house

2. He bought a barge for K700,000.00, after Micah was dumped in the 1997 National Elections, Martin Aini investigated the cost of the boat and the supplier in Brisbane quoted $55,000 to build a new one. The rest of the money was used to buy his new printing business in port moresby.

3. Micah's printing business went broke after the Ombudsman Commision directed government  departments not to use Micah's business because his quotes were twice everyone's else and that he had to give kickbacks to his sleazy corrupt public servants.

4. Finally PNGBC (Papua New Guinea Banking Corporation) took Ben Micah to court and declared him bankrupt. He was bankrupt from 1999-2009, yet he stood for two elections when he wasn't qualified to do so completely disregarding the rule of law and showing his disdain for ethical or moral standards.

5.In 1999,  Micah was appointed chairman of IPBC and was sacked by Sir Mekere Morauta after eleven (11) months for spending (stealing) K2.5 million renovating his small office at Port Moresby.

The above examples are but the tip of the iceberg of what Ben Micah has corruptly done in the past 15 years, he now he has corruptly won the elections, he will be taken to court by Martin Aini for bribery and illegal campaigning which will all come out in public.

Finally, Ben Micah will be dismissed by the court of disputed returns because he failed to register himself for the 2012 elections and bribed John Kasinga to allow him to contest and vote by hand writing his name on the common roll

That's Ben Micah for you, Corrupt, Greedy, Adulterous.

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