Big Pat: COVID CONTROLLER DEMANDS ANSWERS

UN AGENCIES CALLED ON TO ACQUIT C-19 FUNDS

PNG Police Commissioner David Manning.

Police Commissioner David Manning, and head of the COVID-19 National Control Centre, has placed United Nations Agencies on notice that they must reveal how they have spent COVID-19 emergency funding over the past two years.

Manning said the Prime Minister and other Members of Parliament, and independent organisations such as Transparency International, have all called for the release of information on how COVID-19 funds have been expended and they have been ignored.

“Unfortunately, these United Nations bodies have refused to provide financial information to the government and people of Papua New Guinea,” Manning stated.

This matter has now come to a head with the Controller writing to the World Bank Acting Country Director in Papua New Guinea, Paul Vallely, on March 29, advising that he will no longer endorse any further increase in allocation of funds, or disbursements under the PNG COVID-19 Emergency Response Project.

“I have repeatedly requested both directly and through auditors, acquittals of previously disbursed funds under this and other similar projects,” the Controller stated in his letter to the WB on the loan money.

L-R: NCD Governor Powes Parkop, Dirk Wagener and CEPA CEO Gunther Joku plant trees on World Environment Day.

“The recipients of these funds have refused to provide any reasonable account for these monies.

“There is over 1.3 billion US Dollars (4.5 billion Kina) identified on the self-reporting donor tracker as being committed for managing the COVID-19 Pandemic in Papua New Guinea.

“What our people need to know, and the global community needs to know, is how are these UN agencies using the funds allocated to them.”

Controller Manning advised that the project is to receive no further funds until he is satisfied that previous disbursements have been acquitted.

“Enough is enough, I have called for the past year for this expenditure to be acquitted and they have refused, so now I am demanding compliance with transparency requirements in Papua New Guinea.

Covid-19 setup at the Rita Flynn Netball stadium in Port Moresby at the first reported cases of C-19 in Papua New Guinea.

“With the country going through the height of the pandemic, these agencies were provided with some leniency, but we have heard enough excuses and misleading information.

“A substantial part of the funds being expended by these UN organisations has also become a part of national sovereign debt, that must be repaid by future generations of our people.

“But the terrible irony is that we do not even know what they spent this money on, particularly in areas such as communications and awareness in which they have failed.

Details that have been revealed on the COVID-19 Donor Tracking Dashboard shows that UNDP, as one example, has facilitated the following funding of their own activities in Papua New Guinea to an amount of nine million Kina (US$2,587,500).

This is one just source of funding that is shrouded in secrecy and there are several others for which we have demanded information but is being ignored by this global body.”

Mr Manning said he was outraged by the almost identical wording from UNICEF, WHO and UNDP in response to his requirement for and independent auditor to access their records, in which these agencies essentially said they would ignore the request.

UNDP Resident Representative, Dirk Wagener, (left) and the UNICEF PNG Representative, Claudes Kamenga, wrote to Controller Manning with the same language stating that:

We would like to inform you that UNICEF as a United Nations Agency is submitted to the ‘Single Audit principle’ that gives the exclusivity of external Audit and investigation to the United Nations Board of Auditors (UNBoA) founded in 1946 through the UN resolution 74 (I) of 7 December 1946.

Manning said what UNICEF and UNDP are saying to Papua New Guinea is that they will spend funds that are intended for your people, and they will not tell you how we use this money instead of hiding behind internal UN protocols.

“In other words, if these agencies have wasted money that was intended for our people, they claim they can keep it a secret,” Manning said.

“This is exactly what we have seen with the way UNICEF uses public funding for communications and awareness and delivers limited results.

“This is a matter that must be addressed at the highest level of the United Nations, because if this lack of transparency is happening in PNG, you have to ask how many other smaller developing countries are being treated with such contempt.”

The Controller said he will ensure the Papua New Guinea public and international support partners are kept aware of developments in the matter and if acquittals are forthcoming.