Saleu denies graft allegations

By JUNIOR UKAHA
INDUSTRIAL registrar Helen Saleu has denied allegations she has misappropriated funds belonging to the Police Association when she was its caretaker administrator.
Saleu was responding to accusations by the association’s former vice–president Moses Pain that she and the current executives of misappropriating millions of kina belonging to the organisation.
“I am not a signatory to the Police Association bank accounts. I have no access to funds in the association bank accounts,” she said.
“My job there was to oversee that things were done right and properly.
“I was there to see that all expenditure of funds was within laws and within the ambits of the association’s relevant Acts.”
Signatories to the organisation’s bank accounts are general secretary Clemence Kanau and two other executive members of the secretariat.
Saleu, who stepped in to oversee the running of the association after the termination of former president Robert Ali in 2009, said her job was to rectify the financial operations of the organisation. Administration matters were handled by the secretariat.
“My main concern was to see that funds were not abused,” she said.
Contrary to what current president Lowa Tambua said last week, she said there were funds in the “operational” and “welfare” accounts when she left. She did not say how much.
She said Pain had tried to discredit her because she disqualified him from contesting in the association’s presidential elections in 2010 because he was not a contributing member of the association.
Pain had lodged a dubious claim of K240,000 for “hardship allowance” with the association welfare fund “with the intent to defraud it”, she said.
The matter between herself and Pain was in court and it was inappropriate for him to make unnecessary comments in the media to discredit her, she added.