Man facing 100 charges

By BOURA GORUKILA
A 40-YEAR-OLD man who was to be charged in the Waigani committal court yesterday with 100 charges of forgery and uttering was not present, forcing magistrate Tracy Ganaii to adjourn the matter to Thursday.
Before adjourning the case, Ganaii told prosecutor Sr Const Regina Kilip to come up with a solution on how to read out the charges to Andrew Kina who is from Jiwaka.
Sr Const Kilip said she would have the case dealt with in five days by reading out 20 charges a day.
“I will have 10 charges read to him in the morning and 10 charges in the afternoon for five days,” she said.
Kina, who was employed as an events and festival officer with the National Cultural Commission (NCC), is alleged to have, last Oct 5, given a colleague a flash drive containing the signature of NCC executive officer Steven Kilanda and instructed her to print 50 certificates.
His colleague scanned the signature on to 50 Min Mama Bilum Festival certificates for clients.
Kina is alleged to have misappropriated the payments for the certificates.
When he gave the certificates to the clients, they asked for the original certificates but he said they were to be issued later.
A complaint was lodged and investigations revealed that Kilanda’s signature was forged.
Kina was arrested and charged with 50 counts of forgery and 50 counts of uttering and was released on K2,000 bail.
The committal courts will not be sitting today because there will be a ceremonial sitting for Justice Nicholas Kirriwom.