The Issues too sensitive to touch

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 public forum to seek answers that he is already seeking in court. His he running parallel cases to seek the same answer –one in court and one on the street? That I found totally inappropriate and wanting of a lawyer practising more than 35 years as he claims.

Gregory was confronted with the question of him trying to get even with Koim and seek public redemption on the SBS Dateline story where he featured on camera on how he conducts money laundering activities using his law firm. Koim pointed out how Gregory was trying to get even with Koim on this issue leading up to the fb post. Greg refused to answer. Instead he metaphorically revealed that he suspected Koim was the mastermind. A subsequent comment by Emmanuel Narakobi confirms that Koim was not the mastermind in the SBS story. So it seems Gregory slaughtered Koim on a mere misunderstanding. Gregory was out on a vindictive attack as it clearly reflected in the issues he picked on Koim.

The article by Gregory created more sympathisers than haters of Koim. A few spin doctors and paid trolls also took their time to allay the perception. Few of the people who passionately attacked Koim were Gregory himself, Susan Merrell and a Katrina Collins. We now know why Gregory attacked Koim –because he feeds from O’Neill and also because he’s hurt by the SBS report. Koim mentioned something about pending investigations against Gregory –we should be more interested in that one as well because Greg might be launching a pre-emptive strike.

Susan Merrell? This person claims to be highly qualified journalist. I followed her story for some time and all she writes is about Belden Namah and few people she hates most. She does not write anything objectively. Her judgements and articles are coloured with her personal prejudices. She was seen wining and dining with people who are very close to PM including Nii Cragnolini and Tiffany Twivey. She demonstrated that she is there to manage public perception for PM. Never at one time she attacked/criticised the PM on any of the many glaring scandals PM has gotten into.

Katrina Collins appears to be someone with a fake fb ID. She doesn’t even believe in the truth. She may also have drunk from the poisoned chalice of PM.

These people are not interested in the country nor the issues that really matter about the country. They are driven by white supremacy and want us to remain corrupt hence dependent. They live in ivory towers and milk our country. They are not here for their health nor a genuine concern for our country.

I posed this question to them again to test whether they were genuine about the issue of corruption.
“Should the Taxpayers of PNG foot the PMs legal fees for his personal criminal cases?”. None of them responded satisfactorily. One said the UBS was an NEC Decision hence the State is responsible. She stated that even when I specifically mentioned ‘criminal cases” as opposed to leadership tribunal matter. Gregory responded and claimed that the Attorney General briefed him. Ostensibly, you can have a brief out from the Attorney General but that still legitimises corruption if the case itself bears no national interest except that of individual criminal responsibility. That is the highest and dangerous form of corruption –the legitimisation of corruption using ostensible authority. That is what we all should be concerned. If Merrell and Collins were not opinionated, this is the real issue they should touch. I see it is too sensitive for them to touch. It would be interesting to know how many of the educated Papua New Guineans think about this issue on the polls conducted by Sonja Ramoi.

Koim should explain more than what he has provided including his source of funding, if any. I sincerely hope the court will be given the benefit of this. I can be wrong, but I still think that the State should pay for Koim, Damaru and Gituas legal fees because as opposed to PM, these gentlemen have pursued justice and that is a national interest. Their disadvantage is they have an Attorney General who reports to the PM. PM, his army of lawyers and paid agents are now using that shortcoming against these faithful public servants. I was wondering why they are deflecting and interested in attacking these gentlemen instead of respecting the court to make a decision on pending cases including PMs arrest warrant. That is the real issue. May be they are using this as a decoy because their cases are bound to fail and the only way out of it is to destroy the team before they arrive at the court decision.

Looking at the number of pressing issues affecting the country. The economy is not looking rosy. We are in an economic meltdown period. The exorbitant payments in millions and hundreds of millions made to various contractors under the guise of infrastructure development. Today’s media report on a 500 meters road costing K85.7 million should call for nationwide strike. If foreigners are concerned about our country, they should condemn these brazen acts of looting.

If Merrell, Collins and Shepherd are concerned about the country, they should attack this daily light robbery of the people’s money. Or they should comment on current economic collapse.
No, they are not interested in any of these. These are too sensitive an issue for them. They cannot upset their food garden, can they?. They don’t want Papua New Guineans to get it right. They don’t want Papua New Guineans to rise and challenge the status quo of corruption and mismanagement. They want the circumstances to remain as they are, or even get worse so that our demise would benefit them. Everything here is an elephant of course.

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