Like many in O’Neill’s orbit, the newly appointed Minister for Justice and, gulp, Attorney General, has an impressive history of overseeing government agencies mired in corruption, mismanagement and fraud.
When Parliamentary Clerk, the Public Accounts Committee found that Palo illegally gave out hundreds of thousands of taxpapyer dollars to some familiar names:
- Australian businessman Justin Tkatchenko’s (come PNG Minister!) company Kitoro No.33 was awarded a K1.5 million contract to maintain parliamentary gardens, in breach of procurement procedure. The Kitoro tender was received 3 months AFTER the closing date. The tender submitted was only for twelve months but a three year contract was awarded. The original contract amount of K490,000 was K190,000 above the limit imposed by the Public Finance Management Act. The lowest bid for the project tender was just K12,000 per year. Kitoro was awarded contracts totalling K837,738 that did not go to public tender. The PAC recommended the contracts with Kitoro No.33 be terminated immediately and the officers responsible for the tendering, awarding and executing of the contract face ‘appropriate action’.
- CCS Anvil, owned by Gudmundur Fridriksson, an Australian businessman (of Iceland origins) – who is also spearheading the infamous Paga Hill Estate, in a co-venture with the O’Neill government – was awarded a K375,779 to conduct consultancy work for the Parliamentary Service. This was K175,779 above the tender price, and exceeded the limit of Palo’s financial authority to the tune of K75,779. Extra-contractual payments were also made to CCS Anvil in the amount of K28,979.
It was also found that Palo went on a junket to Malaysia in May 2002 with a number of colleagues. During this trip they spent K100,000 in taxpayers money. PAC remarks “substantial amounts have been spent over a period of 5 years without any approval from the Minister”.
Well at least thanks to PM O’Neill, Palo will now have the political authority to waste millions of Kina of taxpayer’s money.
