4 vehicles still missing

By HELEN TARAWA
POLICE have been asked to assist in recovering four vehicles yet to be returned to the Apec Authority after the Leaders’ Summit in November.
In a letter dated yesterday, PNG Apec Authority chief executive Christopher Hawkins asked Police Commissioner Gari Baki to assist in recovering the vehicles.
The four are three Toyota Prados (BFF467, BFF471, BFF477) and an Hyundai H1 van-bus (BFJ522).
Hawkins also reminded Baki that 20 vehicles still being used by his Joint Security Task Force “are required to be retired and delivered to the Finance Department”.
Apec Minister Justin Tkatchenko told The National that “all vehicles are accounted for except for the four”.
He was responding to reports that a police unit had been set up in Port Moresby to recover Apec assets purchased over the past three years.
“It’s only four vehicles that are missing that chief executive officer Hawkins had requested the police commissioner for assistance to track down (so they are) accounted for,” Tkatchenko said.
“There are no other vehicles missing. All the vehicles are visible at the wharf. All the 40 Maserati are locked up.
“All the Bentley cars are locked up. The only one that is out is with the governor-general.”
Hawkins also mentioned in the letter that there were also vehicles “still in use by government departments and agencies that were being recovered by the Apec Authority ahead of the closure of the authority and the repeal of the Apec 2018 PNG Coordination Authority Act (2014)”.
Tkatchenko said they were waiting for the Ombudsman Commission to “give clearance” so that the vehicles could be distributed to districts, organisations and agencies as was planned.
The Ombudsman Commission is investigating Apec assets following allegations raised by Opposition MP Sir Mekere Morauta on their purchase.
The vehicles are parked at the wharf in Downtown.
Tkatchenko said they were “getting smoke, spray, dust, rain and rusting at the wharf because of the misleading allegations to the Ombudsman Commission which has halted the distribution of vehicles”.
“The misleading information has caused us in delay for us getting the vehicles out immediately and winding up the situation,” he said.