K1.2m Boram Hospital maintenance funding stolen

 MORE than K1.2 million was paid to a contractor under the pretext of doing maintenance work on a toilet at the Boram Hospital in East Sepik, an official says.

Wewak General Hospital board chairman Allan Bird said Government funds in the custody of the East Sepik provincial administration for maintaining the hospital were stolen.

“The Government gave Boram Hospital K2 million for maintenance of failing infrastructure,” he said.

“The hospital board authorised the use of part of these funds to purchase a new X-ray machine but unknown to us that over K1.2 million was paid to a contractor under the pretext of doing maintenance work on one toilet at the hospital.” 

Bird said the hospital board could only award contracts up to a maximum of K500,000 and the board did not award any tenders because the work had not been scoped.

“At no time did the provincial tenders board call for or award any tenders for any work at the hospital,” Bird said.

“So how was this contractor able to claim and get K1.2 million for work that was never scoped, never tendered, no contract awarded and never done? How were they able to collude with persons within the provincial administration to fabricate documents to enable this payment?”

Bird questioned why the payment was cleared through the banking system without checks with the hospital acting chief executive officer or himself as the board chairman.

“If the bank can check on payments of less than K50,000 then how come these same checks did not apply to such a large amount?” he asked

East Sepik provincial administrator Otto Ganaii declined to comment, saying he would comment when he arrives in Port Moresby tommorrow.

The Prime Minister has directed an urgent investigation into the finances of the East Sepik government and its provincial administration. The investigation was requested by the East Sepik people.