Somare urges O’Neill to control his ministers

GRAND Chief Sir Michael Somare has advised Peter O’Neill to control MPs in his camp to avoid financial and governance failure.

"We have seen one violation after another since the regime illegally took office on Aug 2 last year," he said.

Sir Michael said in a matter of months, the O’Neill regime had shown its true colours in Papua New Guinea and abroad by bringing shame on the nation.

"This illegal regime has aggressively used illegal schemes to buy public support in order to cling to power," he said.

Sir Michael again voiced his claims that O’Neill and his Treasurer, Don Polye had illegally spent K500 million of unbudgeted funds.

"There is only one legal process by which a government lawfully expends public monies.

"That process is through an appropriation bill in the annual or supplementary budget approved by parliament."

He pointed out that the K500 million expenditure by the O’Neill regime had not been appropriated by parliament, therefore, was illegal.

"My government found itself in a similar position when we formed government in 2002. We had inherited a debt of K800 million at the time from the previous Morauta government.

"They also made self-interested promises of free education to buy public support and committed funds that were not in the government coffers."

Sir Michael said the people of PNG were wondering why such a large number of MPs would collude to defy the Supreme Court ruling and then repeatedly support illegal votes in parliament.

"With the allegations of Namah’s clandestine airplane full of cash from Malaysia, maybe we can gain insight into the operations of this illegal regime.

"Also, very concerning is how Namah can claim to hold the portfolios of Forestry and Climate Change when he is directly involved in logging in West Sepik.

"Also Namah has publicly supported a possibly illegal SABL project to deforest large areas causing significant carbon emissions.

"Such conflicts cannot be permitted."

He wondered why there has been no public outcry over Namah’s conflicting interests.