National Provident Fund

National Superannuation Fund (NASFUND) CEO, Ian Tarutia, said the during Annual Regional Employer Conference yesterday in Port Moresby.

Tarutia said following severe financial losses by NASFUNDS predecessor NPF in the 1990’s member accounts had to be written-off. This meant that those funds were gone.

“You will remember that back in 2000, when the predecessor NPF, there was a commission of inquiry as a consequence of imbalance in the balance sheet, as  a consequence previously of poor decision making by former boards and former management, and there was a write-down.

Mariano Edward Lakae of Apanaipi village, Bereina, Central province, who conspired with two others to defraud the National Provident Fund some 18 years ago, was sentenced to six years in prison. However, the court wholly suspended that jail term because the accused has since aged and the case had dragged on for too long.

The court was of the view that Lakae’s case took too long to come to finality and he suffered enough.

Mariano Edward Lakae of Apanaipi village, Bereina, Central province, was convicted by the Waigani National Court for conspiring with Jimmy Maladina and Herman Joseph Leahy. They plotted to defraud the then NPF and misappropriated a total of K235,000 between 1998 and 1999.

Deputy Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, in his decision, said there was evidence Lakae met with Maladina to discuss his engagement to provide valuation service and that he would share his fees with Maladina.

A three-man Supreme Court Bench this morning found that the trial judge made an error in his decision when he made adverse findings against the accused.

Justices Les Gavara Nanu, Don Sawong and Terrence Higgins found that the trial judge misdirected himself on law and misapplied principles of law when he found Maladina guilty of conspiring to defraud NPF and misappropriating K2.65m.

This is the decision of Maladina's appeal against his conviction from last year.

The court allowed his appeal quashing his conviction.