PM receives Apec report
By HELEN TARAWA
APEC Coordinating Authority chief executive officer Christopher Hawkins last Friday submitted to Prime Minister James Marape a report on the Apec Leaders’ Summit held in Port Moresby last November.
But Hawkins told The National that it was only an interim report as the final report was awaiting the completion of the independent audit carried out by the accounting firm KPMG.
Hawkins said Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan had confirmed that the funds to have that independent audit completed was released yesterday.
Hawkins has until the middle of next month to submit the final Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) report to Marape.
He said 12 months had been allowed as the period for the winding up of Apec starting from when the Leaders’ Summit ended in mid-November last year.
The final report will be submitted to Marape as the minister responsible for Apec.
Once accepted, the report will be tabled in Cabinet before it finally reaches Parliament which will then repeal the Apec Act.
Hawkins in a letter to Marape dated Oct 4 had raised his concern over “interference” with the winding up of the Apec authority.
Hawkins claimed that “millions of kina of missing Apec funds” needed to be investigated and accounted for.
He said there were some payments already made to service providers which were not authorised by the Apec authority.
4 comments
We urge that PM must not accept this interim APEC report and do away after presenting the report in Australia when attending APEC meeting there but Must do a through investigation into the missing million which were unaccounted for. Those missing millions of kina must be recoup and forfeited to state and people behind this misappropriation must be held accountable and dealt accordingly.
Here we go again – millions down the drain..Can a proper investigation be done to recoup these millions and perpetrators be dealt with accordingly. Corruption!!!
The good Prime Minister shouldn’t accept partial APEC report. The APEC CEO had almost the whole year to prepare. It is pathetic and reasons given is unjustified. Incomplete report is evident that APEC CEO hasn’t done anything until the overdue report was demanded.
Should payments were authorised outside of APEC authority, why didn’t the APEC CEO raise it there and then? Why now? Chief Secretary, APEC CEO and others largely benefited and remained mute until the change Government. Realising that their boss is long gone, they started pointing fingers at each other.
The public know now, they can’t pass the bulk. Chris Hawkins, Isaac Lupari or any other, must own up for their culpable act of defrauding the state and people dishonestly. One can devise schemes to siphon money from state coffers but the guilty consciences will continue to haunt you until you kick the bulk. There is NO honour among the common thieves.
Well it has taken all year to prepare the APEC report, what happened to millions of kina been misused, who’s gonna be held responsible, will they be held accountable for it,it is gonna cost state money again to launch COI and so forth please enough is enough get someone behind bars, if Paul Tiensten can be held responsible and be jailed who are they.
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