Phone hook-up taken up

By JULIA DAIA BORE
PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Paul Tiensten’s suggestion to the PNG Defence Force Board of Inquiry to organise and hold tele-conferencing interviews with persons in Solomon Islands implicated in the Moti saga, has been taken up.
Inquiry chairman Justice Gibbs Salika said they contacted the department yesterday morning and began the process to establish whether the option of conducting telephone interviews was feasible.
Mr Tiensten suggested tele-conferencing following steps taken by the SI government to stop the inquiry from travelling to their country to carry out one-on-one interviews.
Meanwhile, the interviewing of witnesses officially ended yesterday.
The counsel are pooling together all facts presented to the inquiry over the past two months to prepare their submissions to the board.
Justice Salika said yesterday, the final report of the defence inquiry was expected to be completed at the end of this month and presented to the Minister for Defence on the first or second week of next month.
Meanwhile, three secretariat staff are still waiting to be paid their overtime allowances for last month.
The payment is understood to have been delayed by the Office of the Defence Secretary.
However, Secretary Fred Punangi, contacted late yesterday, said his office was in the process of verifying the validity of the rates being claimed by the officers with the Department of Personnel Management.
“We are not trying to deprive them of their allowances, but trying to comply with the Public Finance Management Act and the Public Service General Orders,” he said.
Mr Punangi added that the officers’ claims did not seem correct.

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