Source: ROWAN CALLICK in THE AUSTRALIAN
PAUL Paraka, the richest, most powerful lawyer in Papua New Guinea, has been arrested in a dawn raid at a village near the capital Port Moresby over $28.7 million his firm is alleged to have received from the government’s Finance Department.
The principal of the country’s largest law firm, which has 22 branches, has been charged with 18 counts, including conspiracy to defraud, stealing by false pretence, money laundering and misappropriation.
The firm earlier filed a motion seeking a series of interlocutory injunctions to stop the government’s anti-corruption Taskforce Sweep from investigating it, and to stop police executing an arrest warrant on Mr Paraka.
The lawyer claimed, among other matters, that Taskforce Sweep was operating in an unconstitutional manner. The National Court initially granted a temporary restraining order over the warrant, but eventually rejected Mr Paraka’s application, and the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Salamo Injia presiding, last Friday turned down the ensuing appeal.
Mr Paraka told reporters outside police fraud squad headquarters on Wednesday that he was innocent, would continue to fight all charges through the courts, and was simply being paid for government work.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said this week the government would not stand in the way of Taskforce Sweep, which targets administrative corruption.
An 811-page inquiry conducted for parliament three years ago by PNG judges Cathy Davani and Maurice Sheehan, originally from New Zealand, and prominent business leader Don Manoa, revealed a $300m scam perpetrated by top officials and leading lawyers.
But the report was injuncted at a court hearing in remote Alotau through the law firm of Mr Paraka, who is named throughout the document. Neither the parliament nor the two governments since then have pressed for its removal.
The report, as revealed exclusively in The Australian, lists a large number of bogus compensation claims made by and settled within the senior bureaucracy, with the involvement of private lawyers.
The Paraka scams – K780 million stolen from the people
Mr O’Neill said in May he had issued a directive that the government should “act swiftly” to pursue “massive payments in millions of kina made to law firms, companies and individuals for legal fees and out-of-court settlements” by the Department of Finance. “If I have to sack everyone including the tea boy at Finance, I will do so to clear the place up,” he said.
Attorney-General Kerenga Kua told a seminar last month lawyers were using their skills and education to rip off PNG.
