Manager fined K5,000

THE Waigani District Court has fined a 54-year-old woman K5,000 for posting defamatory comments on Facebook as a warning to the public not to harass, defame, threaten or abuse others on social media.
Magistrate Danny Wakikura said on Monday that Dainne Rambe, of Porane village in Kagua-Erave, Southern Highlands, must pay the fine before July 16 or go to jail for five years.
“This punishment is given to warn Rambe as well as the public to refrain from using the social media to harass, threaten, abuse and defame others,” he said.
Rambe was charged with cyber harassment on July 25, 2019 for posting defamatory comments and falsely accusing Laloki Psychiatry Hospital acting director Dr Joyce Vida Sonoling and her team of abusing hospital funds.
She had confessed this to police in a record of interview.
Police said on May 21, 2019, Rambe, who was a ward manager at the hospital, defamed and falsely accused Sonoling and the hospital administration of misappropriating Laloki Psychiatry Hospital funds on the hospital’s Facebook page.
Sonoling was acting in the position as the hospital’s director Dr Nanawar was on leave, according to the police file.
Rambe posted that Sonoling and her team misused K80,000 for travel, room and meal allowances to stay in a hotel in Port Moresby for a week.
She further posted that the K80,000 they had misused was needed to fix the hospital mess and labelled them hypocrites.
Police stated that Rambe’s post on Facebook had publicly made a false claim and defamed Sonoling and the administrative staff which had also broken the hospital’s administrative protocol.
Police said Rambe’s act on social media was unethical, unprofessional and illegal. She was supposed to use the right procedure to go to the hospital’s administration since it was an administrative issue.