France’s highest court has upheld a corruption conviction of French Polynesia’s former president Gaston Flosse, effectively ending his political career.

It confirmed a 2020 appeal court ruling in Tahiti, which had deprived Flosse of his eligibility to hold public office for five years after finding him and the current president Edouard Fritch guilty of abusing public funds.

As former and current mayors of the town of Pirae, Flosse and Fritch made the town administration pay for the water supply to the upmarket Erima neighbourhood, where Flosse lived.

Flosse had set up the scheme and Fritch allowed the abusive billing process to be continued until the practice was discovered in an audit in 2011. In the appeal court in 2020, Flosse had been given a two-year suspended prison sentence.

However, Fritch was allowed to stay in office, but both have been fined and have been ordered to jointly settle the water bill of US$820,000.

When the case went to court, Fritch was a defendant and, as the mayor of Pirae, he was also a complainant because in the civil case running alongside, the town sought to be reimbursed.

In Paris, the court did not accept Flosse’s arguments that the statute of limitations applied, and it rejected a claim that Fritch could not both be a complainant and an accused.

Losing the appeal in Paris, Flosse, who is 90, will not be able to contest this year’s French National Assembly elections nor next year’s territorial election.

Only last week, he had announced his candidacy for one of the three French Polynesian seats in the French legislature.

In 2014, Flosse had been declared ineligible for five years after another corruption conviction and hoped to avert a renewed such sanction by taking the matter to Paris.

He was forced to relinquish the presidency to his deputy Fritch, but the two politicians have since fallen out.

Fritch has since been re-elected president and mayor of Pirae.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A one metre-deep hole in the ground is all there is to show of an almost K2.7 million state contract project in Papua New Guinea’s Northern Province, reports PNG Post-Courier.

The project was for the design, pre-fabrication and construction of a community health post building with support facilities for Kiorata in Sohe district, and valued at K2,682,417 (about NZ$1.06 million).

“The contractor did absolutely nothing except dig a hole in the ground,” said Justice Minister Bryan Kramer.

This project is among others that have been investigated by the State Audit and Recovery Taskforce (SART) initiated by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General working with nine other State agencies.

“The contractors involved in these failed projects have been taken to the National Court for breach of contract,” Kramer said.

“These court proceedings are now before the National Court for orders to be made.

“As with all the court proceedings filed by the taskforce, they will be asking for the projects to be completed at the contractors’ own cost or funds paid for the project to be refunded with interest and costs of proceedings.”

Suspect projects
The SART-conducted site inspections last year in some cases that were suspected of being failed projects despite payments being made, and had been referred to them by government departments.

“The taskforce members travelled to the project sites, some of which are located in the most remote parts of the country, and discovered that almost all the projects were not completed,” Kramer said.

He said many of these projects involved the construction of school buildings and health centres.

“Most of the projects were, apart from some land clearing, not constructed at all.

“Some were 10 to 80 percent finished, and others were completed but with poor design and materials used, so water was coming into the building during the rainy season, or termites were already eating away the timber used,” Kramer said.

“The taskforce compiled detailed reports with photographs, which were then used to file court proceedings against the defaulting contractors for breach of contract.”

This year the taskforce has filed several court proceedings against contractors from site inspections in 2020 for failed projects which cost the state more than K7 million (about NZ$2.8 million).

Billons of kina are lost to undelivered state contracts every year and the SART initiative uses the claims by and against the State Act 1996 to make claims against contractors for breach of contract.

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Opposition parliamentarian Ro Filipe Tuisawau claims University of the South Pacific pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and audit and risk committee deputy chair Mahmood Khan had blocked investigations into irregularities highlighted by vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

Speaking in Parliament during debate on the the 2017 USP annual report, Ro Filipe said deported USP vice-chancellor Prof Ahluwalia had acted as a whistleblower and highlighted irregularities.

Ro Filipe said he had documented evidence of Thompson’s and Khan’s involvement in obstructing investigators.

“What is the role of pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and the deputy chair of the audit and risk committee Mahmood Khan who was appointed to that committee?” Ro Filipe asked.

“All they did was block the investigations and this is documented.

“I am not talking out of thin air. This is documented in a summary by the manager assurance and compliance and reported to the council for interference and restrictions.

“Investigators from the assurance and compliance unit were denied access to records because the pro-chancellor Winston Thompson instructed that his approval was required.”

When contacted for a comment, Thompson denied the allegations adding they would not do such a thing.

“Part of my responsibility and Mr Khan’s as chairs of audit and risk is that we would encourage investigations of any wrongdoings that is taking place,” he said.

Thomson said people were reacting to investigations they had initiated with their “colourless reports”.

Luke Rawalai is a Fiji Times reporter.

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Papua New Guinea’s Auditor-General has questioned who approved a US-based international auditing firm to audit the awarding of contracts by the Health Department to pharmaceutical companies.

Acting Auditor-General Gordon Kega said his office should “sanction” the involvement of any private firm in the auditing of public funds.

“Under the Audit Act, we are supposed to sanction private auditors to audit public funds,” he said.

Kega said his office was not consulted when the Forensic Technologies International (FTI), a business advisory firm from the United States, was called in to carry out the audit after concerns were raised about the way AusAid funding was being used by the department to procure pharmaceutical supplies.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament also conducted a commission of inquiry into the AusAid funding complaint.

Kega said the FTI audited the Health Department “without our authorisation”.

“And that report has been given to the police to carry out investigations,” Kega said.

Police have own jurisduction
“But then the police have their own jurisdiction to investigate any information they [receive] from complainants.

“We are available to clarify our position [with police] on the sanctioning of private auditors such as the FTI.”

He distanced the office of the Auditor-General from the auditing of Ausaid funding to procure pharmaceutical supplies.

The police said the work of the FTI had been approved by the government and funded by AusAid.

Chief Inspector Joel Simatab said the police had already received the FTI report and were awaiting the one from PAC chairman Sir John Pundari.

“The FTI report was sanctioned by the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council while the PAC report was sanctioned by Parliament,” he said.

The FTI and PAC conducted their enquiries in August last year.

“We received the FTI report first.

Both inquiries ‘similar’
“Both enquires are similar but PAC has statutory powers to summon people, seize confidential documents from the banks, companies, service providers and government departments,” he said.

He said the FTI “has no statutory power and so their report is not really in detail”.

“What they did was look into the tender of contracts, procurement, delivery of medical drugs and the lack of consultation between service providers and the provincial health authorities,” he said.

“PAC has the authority to go into detail.”

He said they had the same aim of finding out the processes of procuring medicines for the people of PNG.

“So while we are investigating the FTI report, we are mindful of the PAC report.

“Once we receive it from PAC, we will cross-check both recommendations [before we] conduct criminal investigations.”

The Pacific Media Centre publishes The National news reports with permission.

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Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

A report on the alleged mismanagement and abuse charges at the University of the South Pacific is due by August 16, reports Islands Business.

New Zealand accounting firm BDO Auckland has been selected to conduct the special investigation in response to allegations of speedy appointments and contract renewals as well as issues with staff salary under the former vice-chancellor.

The investigation was called for by the University Council, staff and the New Zealand government.

READ MORE: USP rocked by appointments, contract ‘abuse’ allegations

Islands Business reports that USP’s audit and risk committee (ARC) met last week on Tuesday to evaluate bids to conduct the special investigation from three Auckland firms.

A fourth firm was invited to tender, but did not do so.

“The three bids were put through a rigorous evaluation by the members of the ARC using the structured evaluation template that was included in the bid document and [the] ARC selected BDO Auckland as the successful bidder,” a USP statement said.

The USP ARC also confirmed that its chairman, Mahmood Khan, declared a conflict of interest at the start of the bidding process and excused himself from the meeting room. Khan retired as a partner/director of BDO Northland (NZ) on 31 December 2016.

Staff of USP at the university’s main campus in Suva have called for USP Pro Chancellor Winston Thompson to step aside to allow for the investigation to proceed independently.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Peni Komaisavai in Suva

Staff of the University of the South Pacific at the university’s main Laucala campus in Suva have called for pro-chancellor Winston Thompson to step aside to allow for an independent investigation into alleged abuse and mismanagement to proceed.

This was one of three demands USP staff made in a petition they presented today to the university’s senior management team.

The petition was signed by 500 staff members comprising academic and administrative, and addressed to pro-chancellor Thompson, who is also the university council chair, as well as to his deputy chair Aloma Johansson of Tonga, council members and the university’s vice-chancellor and president, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

READ MORE: USP’s new boss – saviour or destroyer?

Demand number two in the petition calls for pro-chancellor Thompson to “be recused from council chair immediately,” adding “his public defence of those implicated in the allegations is premature and unprofessional and compromises his position as chair.

“Furthermore, his recent public statements against VC&P Pal Ahluwalia are unprofessional, prejudicial and damaging to the university.”

To regional governments who are owners of the USP, as well as donor partners “especially Australia and New Zealand,” university staff in their petition wanted them to ensure that the investigation into the alleged abuses would be fair, thorough and remedial actions effected.

Closely watching
University staff are closely watching the investigation process being led by the USP audit and risk committee.

The committee is headed by Mahmood Khan, a Fiji government nominee to the USP Council, and a chartered accountant who used to work in New Zealand.

In a statement last week, the university council deputy chair Aloma Johansson of Tonga said four Auckland-based accounting firms had been invited to submit bids to undertake the probe.

She said then that the Khan-led committee would meet tomorrow to select the investigation firm.

This Islands Business article is republished with permission.

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