New treasurer for province

 By JAYNE SAFIHAO
POLITICAL pressure on the Finance secretary by its administration and certain Madang MPs last week saw a new provincial treasurer being appointed, it has been claimed.
Governor Jim Kas said it was unfortunate but such a decision had to be made in the best interests of the Madang people.
Acting secretary Dr Ken Ngangan said that the outgoing Andrew Namuesh was the best provincial treasurer available and told treasury staff and senior provincial staff members that there should never be political influence in the administration.
“You should work closely with your open members in ensuring that what they are doing is correct and done according to guidelines,” Ngangan said.
“You are not to be intimidated or threatened by members who are pushing self-interest projects.
“A lot of money is now trickling down at the district level, K50 million in the next five years is a lot of money and the face of the districts should change.”
Namuesh, voted last year as the country’s top treasurer who cleaned up the treasury mess in the last six months, was seen and described as a bottleneck by those in the administration.
The appointment of Gabriel Sol, who is on a three-month contract, was done with the “Madang for Madang mentality” in mind, Kas said.
According to correspondences from the provincial administrator Ben Lange to the finance secretary, the request for removal was done purely on negotiations by those concerned, with no allegations of any sort levelled at Namuesh as reason for his removal.
Namuesh said that he was leaving after balancing the provincial accounts and for the first time all financial statements would be submitted by tomorrow to Waigani.