Teacher sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for forgery

The National National

A TEACHER who forged documents at the Investment Promotional Authority to become a director of a local company has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment with hard labour.
Waigani National Court judge George Manuhu, found Robin Kane guilty of presenting falsified documents to IPA to make him a director and a shareholder of Moitaka Development Corporation Ltd (MDCL) in 2013. Kane, from Ialibu in Southern Highlands, is a teacher by profession and served as a head master in a primary school until his sentence yesterday.
He is married with children whose ages, according to court documents, ranged from one to 23 years old.
The court heard that the company had two persons as directors and owners since its establishment in 1998. In 2013 when one of the owners went to check the company records with IPA, he found out that Kane, with some other people, had changed the directorship and shareholding of the company. Kane and others forged IPA forms 13, 15 and 16, and made the changes.
According to IPA:

  • Form 13 is for a notice of change in shareholders;
  • Form 15 is a consent of existing directors to change shareholding and directorship; and,
  • Form 16 is a notice of change of directors. Alex Pagaiyu, of IPA, said changes would not happen without those forms. Justice Manuhu said the changes were made to those positions without the owner’s consent.

“As a teacher, he should have known better, as a matured man he should have known better, as a father of a big family, he should have known better, that the company was not his,” Justice Manuhu said.
“This was a simple fact, he should have known. Yet he went ahead with others and changed those positions.
“Corruption offences are on the rise in this country, this court should not be lenient on cases like this where people are collaborating nowadays to steal from others.”
Justice Manuhu said in all the circumstances, the court was of the view that a deterring sentence should be imposed to send a clear message to like-minded people that the country was fed up of corruption.
“I, therefore, sentence the prisoner to seven years imprisonment with hard labour,” he said.