‘Hostel sale plan breaches court order’

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 17th November 2011

By STEPHANIE BAWO
THE sale of the North Waigani hostel by the National Housing Corporation is in contempt of a national court order, tenants say.
John Marcus and Emmanuel Mungu, who are tenants of the hostel, said  the public tender notice put in the two daily newspapers advertising the sale of the property was in contempt of a national court order granted by Justice Cathe­rine Davani on June 9, 2010, restraining the corporation from evicting, harassing and intimidating the plaintiffs until after the substantive hearing of the claim.
They said the case was heard by the National Court and referred to the Alternative Dispute Resolution for mediation by all concerned parties and was still pending when the NHC decided to sell the property.
They called on the national government to look into this issue and assign the Task Force Sweep to investigate the illegal sale of state properties by NHC and said this was a clear case of corruption and the action by NHC showed no respect for the court order that was issued.
Attempts to speak to NHC’s acting general manager of property management Michael Wasiura and his assistant Madeline Paulisbo yesterday were unsuccessful.
Their office said it would issue a statement next week as they were not in a position to do so yesterday.
Mungu and Marcus, who are plaintiffs for and on behalf of themselves and the 64 tenants of the hostel, said they were given the eviction notice in April 2010 to vacate the property by May 30 that year.
They said the reason for their eviction was that NHC was doing renovation to the property and wanted all its tenants to vacate the place.
They said they learned later that the eviction was so NHC could renovate the property and turn it into a motel.
They said they took the matter to court and in June last year the National Court issued an order preventing their eviction from the property.
They said according to the Public Finance Management Act, the sale of state properties over K300,000 must go before the Central Supply Tenders Board.
The tenants said this notice took a month and not 10 days as was the case with the public tender notice put in the two daily newspapers this week.