PNGBLOGS

by KUNI BIMUNDI I posed a query “who is funding PM O’Neill’s legal fees?”. Gregory Shepherd, believed to be the lead counsel in all the PM’s court cases, responded and said the State is paying for PM’s legal fees. He further asserted that the Attorney General briefed out cases and payment originates from State Solicitor. Gregory however did not stop at his response. He took a swipe at Mr Sam Koim in the guise of responding to my question. I was at a loss trying to connect how Greg was diverting his attention to Mr Koim. Mr Koim responded to Greg’s comments. The ensuing conversations/comments were hilarious and entertaining. Here is my take on the responses and various comments. Gregory Shepherd raised issues that he is already challenging in court hence Koim described him as engaging in “street fights”. Recent media reports of the cases attest to that. Whilst we citizens are bullied by lawyers for discussing court matters, lawyers like Greg himself took Koim to task in a pub

Acting Deputy Police Commissioner operations Fred Yakasa again gave us a stark reminder of corruption in Papua New Guinea when he said on Tuesday that a mammoth 50% of its budget annually is lost to fraud. This works out to a whopping K4 billion a year, which Yakasa bluntly said had gone into the hands of corrupt public servants and senior bureaucrats, many of whom he alleges have invested these gains overseas. On top of that, PNG fails to collect more than half of the taxation revenue that is due to it. Internal Revenue Commission has admitted that hundreds of millions have been lost through tax evasion, false declarations and companies hiding their books from authorities. Hundreds of millions are lost annually through non-compliance by companies in submitting their tax returns while IRC, because of capacity constraints, limits its checks to major corporate entities operating in the country. Yakasa’s words should be taken note of by every citizen of PNG if we want to see our country d

Acting Deputy Police Commissioner operations Fred Yakasa again gave us a stark reminder of corruption in Papua New Guinea when he said on Tuesday that a mammoth 50% of its budget annually is lost to fraud. This works out to a whopping K4 billion a year, which Yakasa bluntly said had gone into the hands of corrupt public servants and senior bureaucrats, many of whom he alleges have invested these gains overseas. On top of that, PNG fails to collect more than half of the taxation revenue that is due to it. Internal Revenue Commission has admitted that hundreds of millions have been lost through tax evasion, false declarations and companies hiding their books from authorities. Hundreds of millions are lost annually through non-compliance by companies in submitting their tax returns while IRC, because of capacity constraints, limits its checks to major corporate entities operating in the country. Yakasa’s words should be taken note of by every citizen of PNG if we want to see our country

SAM BASIL MP P arliamentarians who have been mandated to represent their constituents are being intimidated and mistreated by their equally represented members of parliament who are in the executive arm of the legislature whom we know as ministers. While I also speak on behalf of some members of parliament who are still awaiting their developmental grants especially the DSIP funds that we all know was recently dished out to only the members of parliament from the government benches or who supported the government during the recent no-confidence attempt. The finance officers in Waigani have confirmed last week Thursday 09.09.10 that all remaining cheques of K2m especially for the opposition members of parliament was signed and released to the Finance minister’s office and are in his possession. So far all DSIP cheques from this eight parliament were physically handed out by the then Finance Minister Patrick Pruaitch, Acting Finance Minister Hon. Arthur Somare, once by the Prime Minister

SAM BASIL MP P arliamentarians who have been mandated to represent their constituents are being intimidated and mistreated by their equally represented members of parliament who are in the executive arm of the legislature whom we know as ministers. While I also speak on behalf of some members of parliament who are still awaiting their developmental grants especially the DSIP funds that we all know was recently dished out to only the members of parliament from the government benches or who supported the government during the recent no-confidence attempt. The finance officers in Waigani have confirmed last week Thursday 09.09.10 that all remaining cheques of K2m especially for the opposition members of parliament was signed and released to the Finance minister’s office and are in his possession. So far all DSIP cheques from this eight parliament were physically handed out by the then Finance Minister Patrick Pruaitch, Acting Finance Minister Hon. Arthur Somare, once by the Prime Min