Graft claims raise pressure on Skate

Politics

By Sam Vulum

POLICE investigations into Papua new Guinea’s con troversial Mujo Sefa tapes have been temporarily put on hold while damaging allegations of corruption, sex and fraud continue to dog the Prime Minister, Bill Skate, and his Government.

The tapes, first aired on Australia’s ABC television, purported to show Skate suggesting bribes be paid to government MPs, ministers and journalists and Police Minister Thomas Pelika receiving money, allegedly improperly.

Police suspended the investigations “under suspicious circumstances” while

Skate and his government’s credibility have been dragged into further disrepute by fresh allegations of fraud and corrup tion. Skate is now accused over events dur ing his tenure as governor of the National Capital District. This is compounded by further revelations by former security adviser Mujo Sefa of sexual impropriety involving a senior politician, allegedly linked to the Government.

Skate, who denies all the allegations including those on the Sefa tapes, is now the most pressured prime minister has had.

And he will make history if he survives this tumultuous period.

His chances of defeating this month’s (March 13) motion by the Opposition to overthrow him have so far looked good.

His power base appears solid and he appears to have more supporters than opponents within the government ranks.

He is also a fighter and will not give in easily. He had made it publicly clear that he will neither step aside nor resign.

And as far as his performance in office is concerned, the past five months have gone well for him. He has been on top of every . major issue including the Bougainville peace process, drought relief efforts, public service improvements, the introduction of free education, the reviving of the economy and the fight against cor ruption to name but a few.

For the first time in several years a high proportion on Cabinet ministers at least give the impression of being able to per form their duties.

However, the backdrop to all this is the confusion and uncertainty that continues to cloud the minds of many Papua New Guineans in the wake of the Sefa revela tions.

Police Commissioner Peter Aigilo told the Post-Courier newspaper last month that the investigation into the Sefa tapes had been aborted due to lack of “material evi dence”. Chief police investigator John Toguata said Sefa had not made available copies of the tapes and had not provided an affidavit when interviewed in Melbourne in December.

Commissioner Aigilo was quoted as saying: “Mujo Sefa, you will realise, did not co-operate with us police as expected and under the circumstances the police inquiry could not proceed any further.”

“There was no evidence found to sup port the allegations made by Mr Sefa or other against the PM, the police minister or any other person.

“Police investigations have led to the eventual clearance of allegations against two politicians. We should now restore full public confidence in their integrity and

credibility.”

However, the Post-Courier also report ed Mr Sefa’s claim that he had co-operated fully with Mr Toguata and that it was Mr Toguata who refused to accept copies of the tapes.

He said he had spoken to Toguata by

Bill Skate... determined

phone and it was agreed that he would travel to Australia to receive the tapes and a statement. Toguata said he agreed to the meeting but said he would Commissioner

Aigilo’s permission to travel.

Sefa, however, said he did not hear from Toguata again and was surprised to leam that the case had been closed.

He said that during their recorded inter view at a Melbourne police station, Toguata had refused to accept copies of the

tapes, preferring to receive them through official channels. Sefa said he had passed copies of the tapes to the Chief Ombudsman, Simon Pentanu, who also interviewed him in Melbourne. He said he was pre pared to travel to PNG to give evi dence but that his safety would have to be guaranteed.

It was earlier reported that Sefa claimed a prominent PNG politi cian was a constant adulterer. Sefa said the politician, whom he had known well in Port Moresby, had on numerous occasions brought women to his house and had sex with them.

The former political fixer was replying to questions about persis tent rumours that he had secret video tapes of politicians engaged in compromising sex acts.

After some prompting he,said: “Mr (the politician) did bring numerous women to my house at Boroko and had sex with them. One of them was his secretary and she was all the time afraid that her hus band would find out. None of these women was his wife.” Asked again if these sexual romps were record

ed on tape, Sefa said, “I’ll take the legal implications of that. I will substantiate that.”

The fresh allegations against Skate were made by Melbourne detective Joe Noonan who was employed by the National Capital District Commission to clean up corruption last year, Noonan claimed in The Age newspaper that at least As3o million had been defrauded at the NCDC and that he had identified about 330 suspects for interview.

He also said that the fraud covered employment of youth gangs on NCDC contracts and that “80 per cent of the city’s crime stemmed from NCDC-linked groups.”

In a separate interview with Australian television’s Channel Nine last month, Noonan accused Skate of having used the NCDC as his private bank “to keep people

happy.”

Noonan said he could not believe the extent of corruption in the NCDC. He said he found no evidence that Skate had received any of the money fraudulently taken from the commission. But he added; “What appears to me is that NCDC is

effectively Bill Skate’s bank to keep peo ple happy.” Noonan said Skate knew of the corrupt deals going on the commission “because I told him personally.” He said the level of corruption was a scale he had not seen in his years as a police officer in the State of Victoria. Now a private detec tive, he said that between K 25 million and K3O million in public money had “just walked out” of the capital through corrupt deals.

He was quoted as saying that many of such cheques were cashed at trade stores which charged high “commissions” for this service. Many of those implicated were still employed by the NCDC, he said.

He added:

“They openly say to me, ‘you don’t understand, do you? We made the prime minister the prime minister’.

And they talk to me as if they are guar anteed immunity.”

The program showed Noonan and his former Post Moresby business partner Sefa seeking to link Skate to criminal gangs in the city. Part of a secretly filmed tape pro vided by Sefa showed Skate telling his for mer deputy Chris Haiveta: “I used to be

called the Father. Skull, you take over from me.” Haiveta was heard responding: “No, you still the boss.” The program then switched to a taped interview with Noonan in which he said: “Somewhere in the vicinity of 80 per cent of all crime in Port Moresby could be related back to NCDC staff because such a high proportion of NCDC staff were, in fact, rascals.”

Noonan said he had reported this to the Minister for Police, the Commissioner of Police, the Internal Revenue Commission and the Auditor-General.

Another segment of the Sefa tape showed Skate and Sefa apparently discussing a payment to be made to Philip Taku, Skate’s successor at the NCDC.

Skate, however, declared that he and his government were clean and that he would not step down or resign in the face of constant allegations being made against him in the Australian media.

He said the latest allegations by Noonan were a conspiracy between Noonan and his busi

ness associate Sefa to bring him down. He said he would make no more comment on the matter because he wanted to run the country and not waste time with “cheap shots.”

“What they are trying to do is link me up to the Mujo Sefa tapes and to question my leadership and to question my govern ment. It is nothing more than cheap gutter

politics.

“It is now evident that there is a con spiracy, conspiracy at its best and we will fight to end this,” he said. He said his lawyers were looking at the allegations.

Skate was also critical of his former deputy Haiveta who he accused of collaborating with Noonan and Sefa. ■

Mujo Seta... surprised