Difficulty Of Importing
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
An Aeroplane
t>ORDER difficulties were shown up in Port Moresby recently, when Mr.
Ward Williams was fined £5 (the mini mum) for importing an aeroplane and failing to pay duty on same.
Mr. Williams needed a plane for his prospecting work on the Fly River, so he bought a Waco machine in Lae, New
Guinea. As there were no facilities for re-fuelling between Port Moresby and the Upper Fly, the machine was not taken via Port Moresby, but was instead flown direct from Lae to the prospecting party’s camp on the Upper Fly—thus crossing the border between Papua and the Man dated Territory.
No one worried about it, apparently, until Mr. Williams’s agent in Port Moresby, Mr. E. J. Frame, noticed what had happened. No duty had been paid, and no certificate of airworthiness had been produced, as required by Papuan law. Thereupon the Government was informed, £l3O of duty was paid, the certificate was produced; and on March 25, Mr. Williams was solemnly fined £5.
The maximum fine provided is three times the value of the article imported.