Landowners demand sacking of Tosali, Yauieb

 LANDOWNER leaders are demanding the sacking of Treasury secretary Simon Tosali and his deputy Anthony Yauieb for misleading government in transferring MoA funds to the Mineral Resource Development Company.

Leaders including Hengebe Haluya (Juha), Asi Ugubu (Kutubu), Edward Alina (Moran), Philip Undialu (Hides PDL 1) Eric Ajule (Hides PDL 7) and Peter Potabe in a joint statement demanded Treasury and Finance Minister Peter O’Neill to sack the duo.

Haluya, speaking on behalf of the leaders, said the expenditure implementation committee (EIC) secretariat within Department of Petroleum and Energy drafted the EIC guidelines in 2008.

“The guideline was hijacked by Treasury and did a cut and paste NEC submission without consulting affected ministers and DPE.” 

Haluya said the NEC meeting in Wabag in 2008 was misled by Treasury’s submission to move the EIC funds to MRDC.

He said MRDC was established under an act of parliament and under IPA as a company to manage cash benefits (equity and royalty) of landowners … but not to manage public monies such as MoA funds. 

“Under the Public Finance (management) Act all monies budgeted and approved by parliament is public money. Public monies are applied by government line agencies and not private companies like MRDC,” Haluya said.