Moka backs Launa saking

By RIGGO NANGAN
THE call for the removal of Papua New Guinea Sports Foundation (PNGSF) chief executive officer (CEO) Iamo Launa has been backed by a PNG Games Council member in the Momase region.
Council member Terence Moka was all for the efforts by the PNGSF commissioners for the Sports Minister, Philemon Embel, to have the incumbent removed. 
“The sporting bodies have already felt the pinch of the administrative bungling under Launa,” Moka, who had been a sports administrator for 29 years, said from Wewak yesterday.
He said all sporting bodies would support the move by the commissioners to get Embel to intervene and address the ongoing allegations of mismanagement and misappropriation within the Sports Foundation’s administration.  
Moka, who is also the senior culture and sports adviser in the East Sepik provincial administration, said PNGSF had already lost its focus on sports development.
Moka said the National Sports Institute (NSI) in Goroka had not conducted any training in the past few months and also the preparations for the coming Pacific Games in New Caledonia and the PNG Games were in for jeopardy because there was no vision set.
He said also that the AusAID partnership funding of K5,000 each for Sports For Development Initiative Programmes (SFDIP) for the 89 districts had come to a complete stop.
“Sports coordinators in each districts are left in limbo because the partnership funding by the donor had stopped coming,” he said.
Moka said PNGSF chairman Graham Osborne and Embel must put their foot down and put the house in order.
He said preparations for the 2015 Pacific Games must start now with the renovations of the Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby and Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium in Lae and the training of possible PNG athletes. 
“I respect Launa but I think she is put in the wrong job,” Moka said, adding that she was an athlete, not an administrator.  
He said the foundation was running smoothly under the leadership of Idris Kumbruwah in recent years.