Namah reports on PM

 OPPOSITION leader Belden Namah has filed a complaint with police against Prime Minister Peter O’Neill over an alleged payment of K50 million to an Israeli company last December.

Namah said in the letter of complaint that the K50m of public funds paid to the Israeli company LR Group was for two 15-megawatt diesel turbine generators for Port Moresby and Lae.

Namah, with his lawyers Tony Waisi and Alois Jerewai, went to the police fraud squad office at Konedobu, in Port Moresby, to lodge the complaint yesterday morning.

“This is a second complaint that I have laid against Prime Minister Peter O’Neill,” he told reporters yesterday.

He said he had evidence to prove that the payment was made to the LR Group, including a telegraphic transfer (of funds) from the Bank of Papua New Guinea to Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv, Israel. 

He alleged that O’Neill had not followed proper processes and procurement under the Public Finance Management Act and the country’s laws.

Meanwhile O’Neill yesterday welcomed Namah’s decision to lodge the complaint with the police on “the government’s decision to purchase two gas turbines from an Israeli company”.

He said he had responded when Namah raised the matter on April 15.

He said Namah had “not offered an iota of a solution or an alternative to what the Government is trying to do to address a critical issue confronting the nation, and more particularly our major cities – acute power shortage”.

O’Neill challenged Namah to prove that “the LR Group and myself are swindling K50 million in this transaction”.

O’Neill said following his trip to Israel last year, the Government decided to proceed with buying two turbines from an Israeli company, Israel General Electrics.

He said the PNG Power Ltd board, which accompanied him to Israel, was involved in negotiating with the company.

O’Neill said if Namah’s action was aimed at “creating political steam, he won’t succeed because leaders and the public at large are fed up with empty politics”.