Yama plans to clean up Madang public service

Madang Governor Peter Yama says he will no longer tolerate slackness and inefficiency of public servants in the province.
He told The National that in his first 100-days in office in the new government “I’m cleaning up Madang”.
“I want the right public servants because they’re very important people,” Yama said.
“We want the right public service machinery in place with all the good people in place under the control of the provincial administrator.
“Our financial control must be properly done with a proper finance manager to deal with all the funds.
“Unnecessary officers should not be signing cheques as has been the case in the past. We need to control that.”
Yama said he wanted to be aware of any payments of over K50,000.
“Just last week, the provincial administrator approved K400,000 for various contracts without my knowledge,” he said.
“How can you approve variation to contracts without a proper work plan, scope of work and all necessary documents? That money was paid to a construction company in less than two days.
“There’s a lot of suspicion in that. I tried to put a stop to the payment of that money but it was quickly withdrawn.”
Yama also cited a case of public servants allegedly involved in allowing their vehicles to be hired by the provincial administration.
“That’s wrong. That’s double-dipping and stealing money from the Government. That’s a serious conflict of interest,” he said.
Yama also gave an example of money being paid for building of classrooms with nothing being done.