Sir Mekere calls on Baki to ease tensions

Police Commissioner, Gari Baki has a role to play in settling the current situation between the Fraud squad and relevant authorities honorably and lawfully, says former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta.

 Sir Mekere said Baki must ease the tensions he and O’Neill have created.

“Baki, like the Prime Minister, should comply with the law.

“He should comply with the legitimate orders of the National and Supreme Courts, and that means reinstating Damaru and his colleagues to their positions in the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate and enabling them to recommence their investigations.

“These investigations include not just the Paraka case, but also into the UBS loan, the Israeli generator deal, which led to the charges laid against Treasury Secretary Dairi Vele, which in turn led to the perversion of the course of justice charges against lawyer Tiffany Twivey, and others.”

Sir Mekere said the Prime Minister’s actions demonstrated not only the disrepute he had brought on the Office of the Prime Minister, but also a deeper phenomenon.

“Peter O’Neill’s Prime Ministership has changed the character of Papua New Guinea from being a democracy supported by functioning institutions to one that is bordering on a failed state.”

He said this is manifested by:

  • His treatment of Parliament as a rubber stamp;
  • His interference in and attack on law enforcement agencies – the Ombudsman Commission, the Police, the Fraud Squad, Task Force Sweep, the Public Prosecutor;
  • His constant disregard for court decisions and erection of roadblocks and detours to prevent their implementation, and;
  • His incompetent management of the Budget and the economy, with huge deficits and huge borrowings, the falling level of foreign reserves, the falling value of the Kina, the country’s current incapacity to borrow and the decline in credit ratings.

“The result is that those who uphold and enforce the law sink to the bottom, while those who are corrupt and break laws fly to the top,” he said.

“Papua New Guinea is now a country where corruption is the norm, where the only questions asked are who gets a cut, and how much.”

Sir Mekere said that it was his prediction that Peter O’Neill would wreck Papua New Guinea in order to save himself.

 

Author: 
Freddy Mou