Parents force scheme leaders for answers

By GABRIEL LAHOC
STUDENTS and parents who invested in a grant programme operating in the Morobe provincial government building have been told to return next week to find out about their money.
The angry group converged at the back of Morobe Governor Luther Wenge’s office where they forced an audience with Lisa Kum, the woman who initiated the programme, and the governor’s chief of staff Russell Theo.
It comes two weeks after parents who believed they were conned into another fast-money scheme asked police to arrest and lock up Kum for a night.
She was released the next day, after she promised to “fix things up at the Department of Community Development in Port Moresby.”
“That was another one of her attempts at buying time.
“It has taken over two years for most of us who are still waiting for refunds,” group spokesman Hendrick Singin said.
More than 2,000 parents in Morobe province paid 10% of the total amount of school fees and community development project, the two components of the programme known as the PNG-England education grant.
Theo and Kum told them that they would address the school fees components first before the community development project.
They also promised to visit schools concerned to liaise with the administrations.
However, they did not clarify their exact source of funding.
Nor did they explain why they were duplicating the role of the Gerson-Solulu tertiary education scholarship.
It was sanctioned by the provincial government and has over the last decade paid the school fees of Morobe students in tertiary institutions around the country.
They also did not explain why their programme was not recognised by the Department of Community Development or the British Embassy.
A document obtained by The National stated that Kum explained to the provincial executive council that they breached their overseas donor’s regulations by including tertiary institutions instead of the high schools only.
She also explained that the reason they were operating inside the office of the governor was because of the involvement of his office secretary Naomi Potty and because of a K10,000 assistance from the governor to this programme.
Kum and Theo told the parents, many of whom whose children were forced out of school for non-payment of school fees, that payments had been made to a few institutions.
Such institutions included Balob Teachers College and Divine Word University.