Motukea probe faces challenges

THE Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the sale and purchase of the Motukea wharf in Port Moresby has heard that persons summoned to appear are either busy with the general election or are living overseas.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Maleva Kipa, made this known to COI chairman and commissioner Sike Julian Toulik in Port Moresby yesterday.
“A good number of the names stated in the summons are current Members of Parliament and candidates who are currently engaged in the elections. Today (yesterday) is the last day of nominations so it is expected that those people will be back in their electorates attending to those duties,” he said.
“Secondly we still have an issue of the service for the summons. For the record we have managed to serve some of the summons. For those that we have been able to serve we are still trying to confirm their availability. Some of them have confirmed their availability for next week for instance Brian Riches, Stanley Alphonse and Juliana Kubak have all indicated their availability to attend next week.”
Kipa said the other issue was that his team was not able to serve summons to some persons of interest as they resided outside of the PNG jurisdiction.
“We have written to the lawyers who are representing the interested entities such as Ballimore No.29 Limited or Curtain Brothers. So in relation to Justine McGann, who is a resident outside of this jurisdiction, we have written to them seeking to confirm if they have received instructions to accept service of the summons. That’s the current status in relation to the summons using McGann’s summons as an example.”
Kipa therefore requested an adjournment to next Thursday.
Toulik, who granted the adjournment, said the three reasons highlighted were important.