Published corruption story on bribery in FISHERIES Gulf Province -- Fight corruption in PNG by forcing transparency & accountability on our leaders!

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 07:24:44 01/07/00 Fri
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Published corruption story on bribery in FISHERIES Gulf Province

DEC 1999

Graft rife in Gulf fisheries: Councillor
PORT MORESBY: A Kerema town councillor claimed that corruption was rife in
the operations of Gulf Papua Fisheries, a business arm of the Gulf
provincial government and has called for an investigation.
Councillor Donald Aiseapo claims that early this year he submitted a report
to the Auditor-General's office about corrupt practices in the Papuan Gulf
prawn industry.

Mr Aiseapo claims that had carried out the investigation at the request of
the Auditor-General's Office after authorities in Kerema failed to respond
to their request to provide information on Gulf Papua Fisheries.

According to Mr Aiseapo, the report among other things alleges that prawns
are being exported in bulk whereas they should be graded and distributed in
pieces.

"Our marine resources, and in fact all our major resources, are being sold
at prices lower than what they are really worth. We are being ripped off,"
he said.

Mr Aiseapo said an analysis he carried out on certain major resource
companies revealed that they are operating on a two-tier pricing policy,
domestic and export prices.

The report also alleges the involvement of certain leaders in public office
and private institutions with foreigners to destroy the capital base of PNG.

Mr Aiseapo claims that between Aug '96 and May '97 he conducted an informal
investigation into the operation of Gulf Papua Fisheries and found there was
"corruption of a degree dangerous to PNG's national interests."

He said the matter was dropped because the Gulf provincial and local level
governments refused to sanction and finance an investigation into it.

Mr Aiseapo then released the information to the Gulf provincial audit office
but to date nothing has been done to uncover the corrupt practices.

Mr Aiseapo called on the Government to look into unfair trade practices that
are allowing foreigners and a handful of elite nationals to defraud the
people of PNG of billions of dollars annually.

"The law condones them and yet the same law is killing our young men for
petty thefts for amounts which are worth nothing compared to what is being
stolen from us by foreigners," he said.

Mr Aiseapo said the fact that the auditor-general has not taken action
following the receipt of his report proves that the bureaucracy is
ineffective.

Meanwhile, Deputy Auditor-General Macpona Kawa said at this stage there was
nothing the auditor-general could do because their request to the Gulf Papua
Fisheries to submit their companies books for auditing have been in vain.

Mr Kawa said the last time GPF had given them their books was in 1994.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]