Governor vows to recoup money spent on roads

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

MOROBE Governor Kelly Naru has promised to recoup millions of kina from Lae road contractors and those who failed to do a quality job if Prime Minister Peter O’Neill does not discipline those responsible.

Naru made the proposition on Monday in Lae when repeating his call to O’Neill to sack Works Minister Francis Awesa and challenging government Chief Secretary Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc to sack PNG Power Ltd chief executive officer John Tangit for taking overseas trips when there were pressing issues and matters concerning their departments.

There have been significant power cuts by PNG Power Ltd and Naru is not happy with the way road contracts were done and the poor quality work.

“If they don’t discipline the ministers and departmental heads, I will set up a legal task force team to recoup the millions spent on contractors,” Naru said, adding “we are still paying for past mistakes”, referring to the continuous pothole patching work by contractors and the city authority on city roads.

Naru is not satisfied that K12 million from the latest batch of K100 million for Lae roads was already paid out to local contractors from which K4m was spent on the boundary that is yet to be completed.

Awesa had admitted two weeks ago that K50m allocated for the Lae city roads upgrading from the 2010 supplementary budget was hijacked and used up without the knowledge of the department, and recommended an inquiry into the affair.