Gamato to stand trial

The National Main Stories

By ZEDAIAH KANAU
SUSPENDED Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato will stand trial in the National Court on charges of official corruption, dealing with criminal property and conspiracy to commit a crime.
Chief Magistrate Mark Pupaka made the decision yesterday in the Waigani Committal Court after he was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence against Gamato to commit him to a trial.
Sixteen of the 18 witness statements including the police brief submitted were deemed relevant.
Gamato, 53, of Sapa village in Huon Gulf, Morobe, was suspended recently to allow him to clear his name in court.
On the charge of official corruption, Chief Magistrate Pupaka ruled that evidence in the police brief was sufficient.
“The prosecution’s assertion is that the money was corruptly obtained by the accused (Gamato) for the benefit of himself or (election official) Terence Hetinu in return for anything he did or may do or anything he omitted to do or would omit to do in the discharge of his duties as Electoral Commissioner,” he said.
“There is evidence that a memorandum of agreement was signed between Hetinu and a NCD Regional candidate.”
On the charge of dealing with criminal property, Chief Magistrate Pupaka ruled that evidence submitted by police was also sufficient.
“Evidence in the (police brief) is that the Hetinu was caught with K184,300 in cash.
“Hetinu told the Police at the time that the money was given to him by the accused, for him to pay polling officials’ camping allowance.
“By his assertion, he was following what the accused told him to do, and subsequently confirmed at the press conference by the accused himself.”
On the conspiracy charge, Chief Magistrate Pupaka said while there was no direct evidence that Gamato and Hetinu conspired, the unchallenged reality of the large sum of money connected them.

10 comments

  • Bravo to the justice system. That’s just one of the countless bad apples. These bad apples need to be identified and weeded out of the already badly corrupted public service system. This corruption is so endemic and widely entrenched in our public service machinery that nearly all public servants, from the very top down to the bottom of the pile, are somehow involved one way or another in varying degrees of corruption.
    It (corruption) has eaten away into the fabric of our society that it is now akin to a cancer or tumor that is suffocating our livelihoods. The little people in the far flung remote hamlets of this nation, for whom the millions of kina are nominally proclaimed and designated, are derailed and misappropriated along the treacherous conduit of the public service deliver mechanism.

  • I don’t know how much countless sums of money these election officials made during the 2017 elections. Gosh…I wish I was in their shoes or in that position to become overnight millionaire! Don’t know if I might try come 2022!

  • Long arm of the law will finally catch up with the corrupt, if this case is successfully prosecuted in court, and more is sure to follow.

  • PNG belongs to God and all persons involved in making the people of PNG suffer will not live long. the empires they build for themselves and their families will collapse and their children down to the third generation are under God’s curse.

  • Salim em go lo kalabus. Mipla no needim kain lain olsem. Sem pasin yah. Very BIG SHAME! SHAME. And I repeat, SHAME!
    (Oi, u sa sem too oh!) Please hide your face in the public vicinity.

  • Now is the time that every secret deals being done under the tables will be reveal so please Mr.Prime Minister and your good Ministers responsible,eradicate these ill corrupt practises once and for all from top down to bottom to take back PNG…..if we wait again for next year or so it will be to late…

  • I guess nothing serious will taken by justice to deal with such a wealthy people as they will still be set free after all, this is how corruption in PNG work hand in hand.

  • Time to reap what have sowed. Please lets not feed our children with corrupt money as it’s a cursed things.

  • Why government can not send these high class of people to imprisonment and recoup all the stolen state property from his/her accounts or hideouts and bring them back to state as state property.
    This will really teach a lesson to those dreaming to steal from government .
    This is another way of Taking Back PNG too.

Comments are closed.