Mayor: Lae has no funds

 LAE Lord Mayor Koim Leahy, in office for four months, says there are no funds left in Lae urban LLG to effectively provide services in the city.

Leahy claimed that the revocation of  ward two councillor Carol Yawing as deputy lord mayor was legal under the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Governments.

“We will wait until 2014 and within this period, I will engage an auditing team to thoroughly investigate and allow mass cleanup in the office before I resume,” Leahy said.

“The financial report for 2013 mentioned many items or fixed assets which physically there is none and there is no record at all. This is a serious case.

“It is sad to observe the complete breakdown in law and order, and deteriorating infrastructure problems emerged during James Khay’s reign as Lae city’s lord mayor for eight-and-half-years. Subsequently, the people of Morobe and Papua New Guineans residing in Lae deserve these basic services but have missed out completely and this trend should not continue. These people have spoken through the secret ballot by electing me as their leader,” he said.

“Furthermore, the revocation and appointing of the deputy lord mayor is the prerequisite of the political head of the local level government as provided in Section 13 subsection 2 of the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government. 

“She was nominated and voted to the deputy lord mayor’s position to supersede my appointment,” Leahy said of Yawing, the wife of Lae city manager Roy Kamen.