Bank of PNG Governor Loi Bakani is again warning members of the public on scams being run by impersonators or individuals who meet around parks in Port Moresby.
He said BPNG does not do banking for individuals and groups.
You see them meeting, almost every day, in groups around Port Moresby’s parks.
They are part of so called financial groups, which targets individuals to register and contribute certain capital, for that big ‘payout’- something many will not get.
Central Bank governor, Loi Bakani, on Friday warned the public of such scams and impersonators.
“Just to emphasise again, you see these people hanging around those parks at Boroko. Those are the people that we are trying to target and tell them, look you meet there and this guy coming with the folder is tricking you and collecting the money.
“He is going and living in hotels and flying around and you are still waiting for your money to come. So we just emphasise to them that you’ll wait and wait and die, and you will never get your money back. So these are the kind of scams that come in different forms.”
Recently a new group, claiming to have Timber Purchasing rights, have also popped up.
“These different people are claiming that previously the old government, or prior to Independence, under the Timber Purchase Rights, the administration that time deducted some of the money and invested in what you called Treasury Bonds.
“And they are now following up on that and come to ask from the Bank of Papua New Guinea. We don’t have any of those Treasury Bonds here. Maybe Australia Administration took everything out and they have to go and ask Australia. After Independence when we took over, those kind of things were never transferred over to us.”
Over the years, these groups have popped up like mushrooms, promising sums of payout, come Christmas, Easter and other big days.
“There’s so many letters, people claiming to have those investments with us but we don’t have anything,” said Bakani.
“So I think it reached a point where some of them are confronting our staff and threatening our staff so I just want to emphasise that we don’t do banking for individuals or groups like that. We are Central Bank for the government. Banker for the government only.
“So any individuals claiming to have investments being held by us or with us and they are telling their people that they are waiting for us to give them that money back, it’s all false claims, it’s scam basically.”