Sir Julius unbothered by referral

New Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan has termed his referral to Ombudsman Commission as “erroneous threats”.

Sir Julius says he is not moved by two open MP’s, Walter Schnaubelt and Ian Ling-Stuckey for referring him to the Ombudsman Commission.

He is being referred to the OC and police fraud squad by five local level government presidents from Namatanai District and ward councilors from Namatanai and Kavieng electorates for allegedly breaching the Organic Law.

Copies of complaints from the five LLG presidents and 65 ward councilors have been delivered to the Ombudsman Commission, Independent Commission against Corruption, Police fraud squad and the Auditor General’s office.

The leaders claim that Governor Chan has been reported to have knowingly breached several parts of the Organic Law including:

(1) s15(3) by holding assembly meetings at the same time as a sitting of the National Parliament. 

(2) s23(2)(b) illegally appointed PPP liaison officers, who are unelected representatives, as members of the PEC, bypassing at least eight elected presidents in the province. 

They also alleged that he has also failed to establish a provincial plan in the last 14 years, since 2007, breaching s5(2) of the PNG Planning and Monitoring Act of 2016, which requires provincial government to complete and furnish 5-year rolling plans to the Department of Planning. 

The MPs claimed that Governor Chan had also failed to complete acquittals of over K400 million Lihir royalty monies since 2007.

However, Sir Julius Chan maintained that he is unbothered by the claims saying he has nothing to hide as all of the issues raised have been dealt with at the Provincial Assembly.  

Author: 
Loop Author