Visit to POM was by youths, Gore says

 SOHE MP Delilah Gore explained in Parliament yesterday that a payment made to a Port Moresby hotel was for four youths – not politicians – invited to meet the National Development Bank on a small to medium enterprise programme.

She was responding to Northern Governor Gary Juffa, who said “some ill-advised, ill-conceived persons” tried to overthrow the provincial government by breaking down the assembly gate and door, “a crime which hasn’t been dealt with by the police as yet”.

Juffa said Gore had tried to deny her involvement in the issue but he had documents showing that she had accommodated four council presidents at the Grand Papua Hotel in Port Moresby at a cost of K17,000.

Juffa asked Gore to explain her role in the recent political upheaval in Northern.

Gore said: “There was a payment done (to Grand Papua) but it was for four youths, not politicians from Oro. Payment was done for four youths that came from Oro”.

She said she had discussed with the NDB that four youths who had completed Grades 8 to 12 to do the SME programme.

“That is why we met and I asked my secretary (Anna Solomon) to make that payment,” she said.

“I did not use the (Department of) Community Development money to pay for Oro politicians to play their games. 

“I had no part in that and I did not support that.”