Jiwaka police assault officer, destroy building

By JAMES APA GUMUNO
POLICE have admitted taking the law into their hands by assaulting a provincial administrator who failed to pay them money they were expecting, and then stoned his office.
The officers from the new Jiwaka province assaulted Jiwaka Transitional Authority director Nicholas Kuman and stoned the administration building.
Acting provincial police commander Insp Billy Kombel yesterday confirmed that policemen were involved.
According to sources close to the JTA, the men from Banz, Minj, Nondugl and Jimi were angry because the K200,000 allocated by the authority to them for their Christmas and New Year operation had not been paid. Part of it had already been diverted elsewhere.
The officers blamed Kuman, who is the sole signatory to the JTA account, for that and assaulted him.
Kombel said the police officers showed their frustration after being informed that out of the K200,000 allocated to them, about K51,000 had already been used to pay the peace and good order committee.
He said his men had given JTA until the end of the week to pay them the balance of K149,000.
The JTA sources said chairman Benjamin Mul had allocated the funds to the police but Kuman had not released the money.
Attempts to get in touch with Kuman for comments yesterday were unsuccessful.
The sources said they did not know why Kuman, who they claimed was the sole signatory on the account, did not follow the directive.
Meanwhile, officials engaged to update the common roll in Jiwaka province also have demanded their payment from the JTA.
JTA sources said the Electoral Commission had deposited K500,000 into the JTA account last year for the common roll update exercise.
The sources claimed that the money was also controlled by Kuman who did not pay the officials after they completed the exercise.
They said some officials were still holding onto their reports pending the payment while some had destroyed them. Others who had submitted their reports went to the office and brought them back.
The sources said they didn’t know why Kuman was delaying the payment to the officials.
They also said K100,000 allocated by the JTA last year for new Minj secondary school has not been released.
They also claimed that the allowances for the JTA employees totalling K354,000 for the
past 18 months had not been paid.
They said many other decisions made by the JTA regarding allocation of funds had not been implemented.