Husband, wife jailed over K1.6 million fraud

By DEMAS TIEN
THE National Court has sentenced a husband and wife to five years imprisonment with hard labour for misappropriating K1.6 million of public funds.
Deputy Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika said the sentence would be suspended if Christopher and Agnes Hulape implemented the proposed projects that the money were intended for.
The projects consisted of a community learning and research centre at the cost of K600,000 and three markets at the cost of K1 million in the Kiriwina-Goodenough district in Milne Bay.
Sir Gibbs gave the couple 12 months to arrange with contractors and implement the projects at their own costs.
Sir Gibbs said failure to do so would result in the pair serving their five-year sentence.
The court made these orders because it found that they had made payments to certain contractors to deliver the projects but the contractors failed to deliver materials on the project sites and complete the projects.
Christopher was a director of a company called Torch Bearer Productions and Agnes was the only shareholder.
The company was nominated to carry out the projects.
The project proposals were submitted to the Department of National Planning and Monitoring and a cheque of K1.6 million was raised on Feb 23, 2011 in favour of the company.
The cheque was deposited into the company’s account on March 23, 2011, and upon clearance, withdrawals were made until the account was depleted.
The district administration terminated the contract on Aug 29, 2011 because 10 months had passed and the projects had not been delivered.
Bank statements showed that some money was paid to companies known as Kepmart Trading, Kepmart Plant Hire and John Seeto to purchase materials and provide services but those materials were never supplied by the companies for the proposed projects to be delivered.