St John expects fresh funding today

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
THE Health Department has not released this year’s quarterly funds needed by St John Ambulance Services to run its daily operations and pay for its cost, service chief officer Douglas Kelson said yesterday.
“However, I was told by the Health Secretary today (yesterday) that the appropriate funds will be released by tomorrow (today) and the personnel will able to get their last fortnight pay by weekend.”
Mr Kelson was reacting to reports that he had allegedly misappropriated funds from the Health Department, leading to the non-payment of his workers, particularly the last fortnight pay.
“Also our previous fortnight pay was stolen by armed robbers.”
Mr Kelson also denied double-dipping by receiving rental money from funds allocated to St John while being the owner of the building at Rainbow in Gerehu where the operations and administration office is based.
“Those are just rumours … we have credible public servants like police commissioner Gari Baki, PNG Defence Force Commander Peter Ilau, former Office of Security Coordination and Assessment (OSCA) Director General Joseph Asaigo on the St John board … Mr Baki is also the chairman.”
“They could not have me in the organisation if those allegations are true.”
Mr Kelson said that St John ambulance services are now operating well after taking over in August 2003.