The delay in the construction of the Wewak Sub regional Court complex was due to a court dispute.
That dispute was solved in 2015 and the Judiciary took all steps to come up with a new design, and a contract for the construction.
Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia said these when clearing the misconception on the delay of the project following a ground breaking ceremony for a new court complex for Wewak back in 2004.
“There are some misconception out there, that the money given to the judiciary, K10 million some years ago has gone missing,” he said.
“When the Grand Chief was in office as Prime Minister, I learnt that the government budgeted K10m for the Wewak Court complex. And the ground breaking ceremenony was done by one of our predecessor, here many years ago.
“Our records show that we receive only K5 million of the K10 million from the Finance department. Of the K5 million, close to K2 million was used to carry out civil work on site. What you see here is where the K2m went,” he said before the ground breaking at Kreer Heights today in Wewak.
Those civil works were done between 2004 and 2006.
“Of the K5 million we received, K3.2 million is sitting in a trust account that I created when I became Chief Justice.
“So the K3.2 million is going to be part of the contract of the K16.2 million for the construction of this complex. The other K2m has already been used,” The Chief Justice clarified.
Sir Salamo said the contract is for K16.2 million, and K2 million has already been spent while the other K2 million is for project management and so forth.
“So the project has been delayed since 2004 due to a court case involving a contract for the construction of this court complex,” he said.
In between that period, the development of the new complex for Wewak was put on hold by the court.
“In 2015, the case came to an end, that’s when we started shifting to get a new contract for the new court complex in place. We discarded the old contract and the old concept with the litigation,” he went on to say.
A new design was put together in 2015, and that is the contraction of the complex at Kreer Heights.
Sir Salamo went on further to say that the Judiciary had no input on the procurement process and the awarding of the contract.
“I am sure that we are going to deliver on budget to the required standard and on time,” he added.
The new court complex will be built by Gold Bell Construction after an agreement signed with the Secretary of National Judicial staff Service Jack Kariko early this month at the Government house.