Marape warns treasury officers

Finance Minister James Marape has promised that the Madang provincial and Bogia district treasury officers will be punished if they are guilty of  breaching the public finance management act.
Marape said the provincial treasurer allegedly requested K16,000 as allowance to investigate  alleged misappropriation of K1.4 million from the Bogia district treasury.
“Two district treasury officers will be punished for allegedly misappropriating K1.4 million of the district support improvement project,” he claimed in Paliament on Friday.
Bogia MP John Hickey had asked Marape for his assistance after his requests were not attended by Finance secretary Dr Ken Ngangan and the provincial treasurer to investigate district treasury officers.
Marape said that he had directed Ngangan to investigate the allegations  and Finance Department officers would be flown into Madang.
He said that he was not happy with reports about the Madang provincial treasurer requesting Hickey for allowances before investigating officers’ misconduct.
“He goes ahead and asks the MP for K16,000 allowances to simply do what he was supposed to do. He is been paid to supervise the district treasury’s operations and yet he sits in Madang and asks for extra allowances. He just has to go to the bank and get a bank statement. Asking your district treasurer to submit their monthly reconciliation, getting quarterly bank reconciliation – these are works where the finance minister does not need to supervise .”