Fraud team arrest former first secretary

A FORMER staff of former South Fly MP Sali Subam has been rearrested and charged with misappropriating K6 million belonging to the South Fly development funds, National Fraud and Anti-Corruption director chief Supt Mathew Damaru says.
Detectives from the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate arrested and charged Andrew Menger Marubu of Bela village, Mendi, Southern Highlands, on two counts of false assumption of authority and one count of misappropriation of K6 million.
Former forest minister Douglas Tomuriesa and his wife Rachael with Subam have all been arrested and charged with the matter.
The arrest of Marubu completes the investigation.
All cases are now before the committal court proceedings in Waigani and in Daru.
Damaru said that Marubu was formerly employed by the national parliament as first secretary to Subam.
He was arrested and charged on this matter in 2017, but the case was struck out due to want of prosecution.
It was alleged that in Oct 2011, the Finance Department allocated K6 million to South Fly for the construction of health workers’ houses.
After the money was transferred, Subam convened the joint district planning and budget priorities committee meeting in November 2011 and made a number of resolutions, including the decision to tender the project which changed the scope from building houses for health workers to supply of building materials.
A recommendation was made to the Central Supply Tenders Board to tender for the rural housing programme.
About half of the K6 million was expended on the project, however the other half was spent on expenditure not related to the project in other locations.