Conversation with the Prime Minister’s daughter
Betha Somare, the daughter of Prime Minister Michael Somare, and his Press Secretary has been been attempting to defend the governments lack of action on the Paraka Scams in an email correspondence forwarded to this blog.
As you can read below, while Betha has been willing to talk, which is commendable, she has not yet been able to provide legitimate answers to some simple questions like: Why has the government not tried to get the injunction against prosecutions lifted?
That question got a response any first year law student could spot was false and other questions about Gabriel Yer and the Kapris Tapes have been met with obfuscation – not answers.
While Betha should be congratulated for her attempts at open government her answers so far do nothing to challenge the fact that her father, Michael Somare, is the Chief of a government that is overseeing the theft of millions of Kina every week from the people of PNG.
Whether that is because:
- He is completely incapable of controlling the theft of public money by his Ministers and senior public servants, or
- He and his family are themselves benefiting from the theft – either directly in cash or indirectly by tolerating the scams in order to hang on to power.
does not matter.
The fact is Somare is not the Prime Minister OF the people he is the Chief of a House of Thieves who are stealing FROM the people.
No medicines in the hospital, no staff in the rural health centre, no books in the school library, giant pot holes in the road?
The Prime Minister knows why we suffer these injustices because he spent 5 MONTHS reading the Commission of Inquiry report into the Finance Department and how K780 was stolen over 6 years.
Five long months while millions more Kina flowed out of the door.
And what has he done since getting the Report in October 2009 – NOTHING.
Come on Betha, no more excuses or obfuscation, the people deserve ACTION.
The conversation with Betha Somare - please read from the bottom up
Dear Betha
1. On the Paraka injunctions it is nonsense to say the
government cannot do anything because of the doctrine of the separation
of powers. Any law student could explain this for you. Either you are
receiving very poor legal advice; or really don’t understand the
doctrine; or you are deliberately attempting to mislead. The government
employs whole teams of lawyers in both the Solicitor General’s office
and Department of the Attorney General who are in and out of court on a
daily basis on government business. This includes frequently trying to
overturn injunctions or questioning the earlier decisions of the court.
There is NOTHING in the doctrine of the separation of powers that stops
the government seeking to get the injunction lifted. Indeed, the
injunction that was granted was an ex parte temporary injunction given
as an emergency measure by the judge on hearing only one side of the
argument. The normal process when an ex parte injunction is given is
for the matter to go back before the judge a few days later for all
parties to be heard and for the judge to consider whether the
injunction should stay in place. By doing nothing to ensure an inter
parties hearing the government is failing in its duty to the people. If
the government is hiding behind a misguided reading of the Separation
of Powers as an excuse not to act then the people are entitled to
conclude the government endorses the K780 million scam. If you require
independent legal advice to assist you on this issue then happy to find
some lawyers who will help you and the PM on a pro bono basis.
question that was asked. To state that it was not the PM who appointed
Yer as Secretary of Finance some years ago is IRRELEVANT. The question
you were asked was, why has the Prime Minister, knowing Yer is heavily
implicated in the Paraka Scams decided in the last fortnight to hand
him all the financial powers of the Department of Planning? While it
was great the government responded to the scams in Planning by
taking powers away from Teinsten it was ridiculous to then give
financial control of that Department to Gabriel Yer. The PM said in the
statement you kindly circulated that he had spent 5 months studying the
Finance Department Commission of Inquiry report and therefore he must
know intimately all the ways Yer has allegedly stolen large sums of
money. Yet he gives him MORE power?
wholly misconceived. Nobody is suggesting that Pruaitch et al are not
entitled to a presumption of innocence. What the people are saying is
that serious allegations have been made and the police should
investigate them. Yes, Kapris is a convicted felon, but since when did
the Police start ignoring tip offs from criminals? Often such people
are the polices’ best source of information. Who better than a bank
robber to know who financed and profited from his crimes? To ignore his
sworn statements and not insist on a police investigation smacks of a
cover-up. If the politicians are indeed innocent what do they have to
fear? Why does the PM not ask them to stand aside and insist the police
conduct a full investigation? Or is it one law for MPs and another for
the rest of us?
PNGexpose
3. I am not a lawyer but William Kapris is not a remandee, he is a convicted felon. He has no credibility. And you have no evidence that his utterance have any substance. Where are we heading when we begin to believe one person’s word without evidence is the truth? In PNG the law is still that one is innocent until proven guilty. Starting from the premise that people are guilty and then trying to make mud stick is an injustice.
Betha
1. What steps has the government taken to have the temporary injunction obtained by Paul Paraka lifted?
2. Why, knowing that Gabriel Yer is heavily implicated in the scams, has the PM given to him the financial powers taken from the Dept of Planning because of the scams involving Minister Tiensten?
3. What steps has the PM taken to investigate the claims by William Kapris against Minister Pruaitch, who also benefited from the removal of powers from Tiensten?
Kind regards
PNGexposed
On 5/20/10, Betha Somare wrote:
Thank you for emailing me even though you are nameless. I am happy to inform you that the findings and recommendations of the commission of inquiry were presented to parliament by the prime minister during a recent session of parliament.
This means it became a public document and available for all to see.
Unfortunately, Paraka Lawyers took out a successfully court injunction
stopping publication and discussion on the Report.
Government is also unable to implement the recommendations of the Report
because of the pending court decision. For your information, I have
attached the PM’s statement to parliament when he presented the Report.
I hope that in your quest you can also expose the truth.
Cheers,
Betha Somare
PM’s Media Unit
Papua New Guinea
Tel: (675)3276525 (675)3276525
Fax: (675)3233943
Hi Betha
When is the PM going to do something?
The Paraka Scams – K780 million stolen from the people<http://pngexposed.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/the-paraka-scams-k780-million-stolen-from-the-people/>
Yama and Gelu conspired to steal K15.5
million<http://pngexposed.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/yama-and-gelu-conspired-to-steal-k15-5-million-from-the-people-of-png/>
Its just amazing. Totally. I mean look at all these shit right here. Yeap, thats right. We will read and discuss these issues maybe once or twice and be fired up about it and then forget. We need the Genius World Record people to have this written down that Papua New Guinea is the only country where Amnesia is country-wide and is the official national disease. I think somebody needs to get shot so that we will wake up from this slumber and claim our future before it goes to the foreign dogs.
You are doing well. Keep it up.
Very very very interesting.
Corruption at its best. Please, keep it coming, more of it and we can distribute to the general public for their consumption and comments. They will make the decision in the end.
Rose
Our country is leading to destruction.
It is very painful for us Mothers and children to hear/see the greed and selfishness of our
so-called professional men (lawyers/policitians/accountants/economist ect). We have fallen victims of such actions.
What about our people back in the rural village who have been mis-informed.
I called on our precious men & women in towns/city to get back home and inform your local
village people on what has happened and that is why there are no basic services brought
to the rural remote & isolated areas.
Let’s focus on 2012 to get Godly fearful men and mostly Women into Parliament.
Thank you PNG Expose.
The Law protects, defends and also must prosecute and separate those who abide in the law and those who break the law.
No position in Govt, even the PM’s office is above the law.
What’s hitting us in our faces has rooted deep over the years that even the family members of the PM have misadvised and misled him.
When we see the people begin to question the integrity of the current PM and his government, I believe GOD is saying, his time is up.
We the very people of PNG who put them in office should also reject them, if they are not looking after the needs of the people who voted them in. If there is justice in heaven why do we NOT act justice here on earth?
If the very people of PNG seriously suffering, pray and seek God’s justice and will, there will be much mourning that no-one will stop.
How is it that the government that GOD put in place cannot act to correct the wrong’s they themselves have created out of greed?
1) The push for Separation of powers are power hungry people already powerful currently sitting in parliament?
Can’t the people dethrone them or dissolve parliament in any way or even refuse voting the next govt?
2) The govt. has made strategic appointments of Dep’t heads for their own gain over the years.
Why is the current appointee (Sec of Fin Dept) still in office after been implicated in the COI for Finance Dept?
3) Take note of the network that William Kapris has exposed. It already sounds too dangerous for even any ordinary people on the streets. The escapes and arrests of prisoners speak for itself. Where is law and order? Where is justice? Where is righteousness?
Willie’s confessions (of crime) are something that a wise person would sit down and rethink where we are heading as a nation?
Where is democracy??? God SAVE Papua and New Guinea!!!
Sadly our sister Bertha’s answer on behalf of the (father’s) PM’s office reveals a conflict of interest as a daughter to the PM.
Can she see beyond the truth from her position inside?
PNG Expose, expose and deal with this corruption please. Enough is enough!
Betha, Arthur, the Grand Thief and the rest of the family don’t have to worry about PNG going to the dogs because they’ve all prepared their escape to Cairns if the Grand Thief gets kicked out of office. Then over in Cairns, media specialist (and failed journalist) Betha will continue to promote what wonderful patriots the Somare family was. It’s all very clear that the ‘new’ Somare that surfaced the last 7+ years is nothing more than an attempt to show career archrival Sir Julius Chan that Somare can enrichen himself through legal loopholes just as elegantly as Sir J did.
Sir J has his own family skeletons but the Somare family is truly classic as a bunch of backbiting squabbling wantoks whose attempts at tricks and deceptions never cease. Lady Veronica is renowned for her various extramarital affairs with security guards but that didn’t stop her from periodically smacking the Grand Thief when he got home from overseas trips on her suspicion that he was doing the same behind her back. Veronica is one high flying mama always demanding the very best that money can buy. We should give her the title Dame Thief. Betha is a failed newspaper owner and journalist who is now employable only through Somare Inc. Arthur is a – how shall we put it – a thug whose own wife messed around, Arthur found out and sad to say, resulted in the violent death of the fellow who obviously was more sexually attractive than Arthur.
We could go on and on, the sad and sordid stories of the Somare family make their rounds at all the Moresby bars and have been an occasional source of great humour for many years. When I read Betha’s feeble attempts at replying to pngexposed questions, my mates and I just shook our heads and laughed, imagining all the while that Betha must be wearing an even more sour looking face than she normally has on.
May the dysfunctional Somare family escapes humour us for many more years to come. When the head of the tribe finally dies, let us not do the normal stupid PNG thing of crying our little hearts out for even the most corrupt. Let us instead celebrate the end of the Grand Thief and everything incompetent or evil he has come to stand for.
I love the humor.. this is great,,