Thursday, June 19, 2014

How it works in PNG

On Monday, Papua New Guinea police issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Peter O'Neill over his alleged involvement in a $31 million fraud. The Prime Minister didn't like this, so he has shut down the anti-corruption unit responsible for the investigation, and sacked the deputy commissioner in charge of it:
The Papua New Guinea prime minister, Peter O'Neill, has sacked the deputy police commissioner and shut down a corruption watchdog that was trying to arrest him over an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud.

A police warrant was issued for O'Neill's arrest on Monday over allegations that he siphoned $31 million of public funds to a law firm, Paul Paraka lawyers.

O'Neill denies any wrongdoing and on Wednesday shut the corruption watchdog Task Force Sweep, effectively ending its investigation into the matter.

[...]

O'Neill also sacked the police chief of operations, deputy commissioner Simon Kauba, who was heavily involved in the case, accusing him of disobeying government orders.


Those orders presumably being to drop the case and sweep the entire thing under the carpet. As for the police, they're now busy arresting each other for perverting the course of justice by delay the arrest.

Its a perfect picture of how things work in a rotten regime: politicians abusing their powers to protect themselves and prevent proper investigation of their actions.