Police Dept paid K10m for hire cars Source: The National "A RENTAL car company was paid more than K10 million by the Police Department during and after the political stalemate between Jan 2011 and May last year in Port Moresby, documents obtained by The National show. The money, paid in two installments was for the vehicles used by the police special force based at McGregor Barrack in the National Capital District. The same company had hired out vehicles to the Electoral Commission during last year’s general election for use in the provinces. The matter was raised by government officials following a newspaper report about the Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s statement in parliament regarding excessive hire car bills by the Government. O’Neill told parliament he believed there was a hire car racket in the country that was charging government agencies excessively. Documents show the police special force had hired more than 20 vehicles (based on registration numbers) from the hire car company between Jan, 2011, and May, 2012. Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga denied having given approval for the hire. “The hire of those vehicles was unauthorised. As soon as I took over as commissioner, I put a blanket ban on hire of vehicles so those vehicles were hired without my knowledge,” Kulunga said. The ban is still in force and only the commissioner can authorise vehicle hires. Kulunga said he did not believe police had actually used that many vehicles. He was aware of a payment of about K3 million to the company after the money was provided by the Finance Department. “I don’t make commitments for goods and services outside the police department budget. We don’t have that kind of money to hire vehicles. If we had, we would have bought vehicles for our police stations rather than hiring them,” he said. Kulunga said during the special police operations at the time of the political impasse, a number of vehicles were hired but payments had all been settled using the department’s own budget. Police Department officials believe the payments were improper and could have even been fraudulent because of the large number of vehicles purportedly hired during the period. Staff from Auditor General’s office and the inspection section of the Treasury Department checked the Police Department’s accounts recently and have yet to make public their findings. Bills for the use of vehicles by the police special services from Jan, 2011, to Feb, 2012, totalled K7,584,400. The first payment for K3 million was made on Nov 30, 2012, through a Bank of PNG cheque (number 11968). Finance and Treasury officers queried why there was no approval from the Works Department’s Plant and Transport branch for outside hire, why no formal document from the NEC or the Police Department had authorised the special operation; why there was no contract for the use of the amounts in question and why there was no NEC approval for the payments. The company billed the Police Department in February last year in anticipation of settlement in part or fully before the 2012 elections. Because the Police Department did not have the money, the Treasury Department allocated K3 million in Nov, 2012, to settle part of the bill. That left a balance of K4.6 million in outstanding bills. The police mobile squad continued to use the vehicles until the end of May, 2012, and incurred an additional K3.2 million, bringing the total outstanding to K7.8 million. A requisition for expenditure for K7,782,000 was raised by Department of Finance on March 21 for the settlement."
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 09:33:17 +0000
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