Officers to investigate use of Manam funds

FINANCE Department officers will be dispatched to Madang to investigate the use of several millions of kina of Manam Restoration funds that have allegedly been misused and squandered.
Minister of Finance Charles Abel, in response to questions from Bogia MP Robert Naguri, who had claimed that funds belonging to his people had been stolen, misused, misappropriated and squandered over the years.
He wanted an immediate audit into the Madang treasury and provincial administration.
Naguri said Manam people had been relocated to the mainland by the government after the volcano eruptions in 2004 but since then the plight of the people had being ignored for more than 15 years.
He said land issues between landowners and settlers had been an ongoing issue, especially between landowners in Sumkar.
Naguri said he had being raising the issue in Parliament but it seemed like his concerns had fallen on deaf ears.
However, he said there were serious law and order issues between the settlers and landowners in Sumkar that he was trying to sort out.
Naguri said over the years, millions of kina earmarked for people in Manam in the name of restoration and settlement had been released by the government to the Madang administration but they had all disappeared without trace or results. “Millions of kina have been allocated for my people of Manam but they have not seen a single toea. These monies have been parked in the Madang provincial treasury and they have been squandered, stolen, misappropriated, misused and misapplied by the Madang provincial administration,” he said.
“Minister for Finance, I would please, please ask you to send an audit team immediately to Madang to investigate these funds.