MP accused of misusing virus funds

The National National

ALLEGATIONS of the misappropriation of government funds meant to address the Covid-19 have been levelled against a senior government minister by a suspended district official in Morobe.
Bulolo administrator Tae Guambelek alleged this week that local MP and Minister for National Planning and Monitoring Sam Basil diverted K2 million in coronavirus funding to other projects.
Guambelek said public servants in the district were concerned as the funds had been diverted to other projects in that should have come out of the district services improvement programme (DSIP).
He said out of the K2 million, the balance, as of last Thursday, stood at K146,000.
“We’ve engaged 215 officers to carry out the awareness and our aim was to cover 100 per cent of our 108 wards in the district, we were able to cover 87 per cent out of the wards,”he said.
“Also, our aim was to protect ourselves, our families, and the people of Bulolo to have zero deaths in this Covid-19 out break.
“We have done all this work expecting payments and relied on Covid-19 funds where the government allocated K2 million to the district knowing that the money would offset all the outstanding claims for the police personnel and public servants in the district participating in the awareness on the Covid-19.
“As a district official, I’m not happy and I’m coming clear on this because the public servants did the hard yards covering the majority of the 108 wards in Bulolo in Covid-19 awareness.”
Basil, responding to the allegations, stated that under the Finance Department instructions per Form 11-05/2020 Bank South Pacific opened the bank accounts for Covid-19 funds, otherwise they (Finance Dept) would have rejected all transactions.
He said the signatories were the district administrator or his deputy from the administration and the district accountant.

 

3 comments

  • Get the police fraud squad to do the investigations right away. Suspended District Administrator Tai Gambarek’s suspensions must be lifted immediately so that he can continue to remain in office as District Administrator until investigations are carried out and completed. The people of bulolo Wau electorate want to know the truth about that K2million Covid19 funds and what has happened to the money. There are rumours going around that K1.5million was put into a bank account by an expatriate man from Morobe and we want to know the name of this stupid white man too. We must all stand up and fight corruptions and I commend the action of Bulolo District Administration.

  • Sam Basil is already missed his focus as the true MP according to his reputation in the past Government. He is another traitor of this Nation. Sound talking as True Leader but Diverting Covid 19 funds show how corrupt you are and perhaps Basil intention is to enrich himself. Poor leader.

  • The two covid-19 positive cases from Morobe are traced to that part of the province and the member should have taken it seriously. This clearly shows the member is not serious about the welfare of the very people he represent. He should be out of the parliament.

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