Court dismisses case against deputy AG

THE Waigani Committal Court has dismissed corruption charges against the deputy auditor-general, corporate services, Ivan Boga, after police failed to serve the file containing evidence against him in court.
Magistrate Cosmas Bidar said sufficient time had lapsed and to date no police file had been served to Boga nor the copies to the court.
The court discharged Boga on one count of conspiracy to defraud, one count of misappropriation, one count of abuse of office and one count of false pretence.
The court ordered that his bail money of K3000 be refunded.
Boga was arrested on March 27 and had been attending his court proceedings until yesterday.
In March this year, police alleged that Boga conspired with four others and awarded two contracts to a private accounting firm, Frank Benabo and Associates, to conduct audit inspection on the Aitape-Lumi and Mendi district services improvement programme books from Jan 1 to Dec 3, 2012, and Jan 1 to Aug 31, 2012, respectively.
Police alleged that an approved payment of K247,500 to Frank Benabo and Associates deliberately bypassed the Office of the Auditor-General’s set of procurement and public tender procedures, a gross abuse of payment process awarding the audit of DSIP to this private firm.
It is alleged that despite the payments received by the accounting firm, no actual audit job was conducted.