A THREE-MAN Supreme Court yesterday heard the substantive appeal by convicted prisoner Paul Tiensten against his conviction and sentence.
Tiensten, who was national planning minister then and Pomio MP, was convicted and jailed for nine years early this year on one count of misappropriation involving K10 million. Yesterday, his lawyer Greg Sheppard made submissions arguing that the footnote by his client to pay K10 million to Travel Air Limited, owned by East New Britain businessman Eremas Wartoto, was not a direction and could not amount to the charge of dishonest application of the money. He said it would be rather a recommendation, request or a consent from the political head for section 32 officers, in that case, the Acting Secretary for National Planning, who as the departmental head, has the financial powers to consider and make such payments, which they did. He argued his client was wrongly charged with dishonest application of funds he did not apply. The funds were applied by officers in the National Planning, he said, adding that they should be held accountable and not Tiensten. Mr Sheppard maintained that a direction by law must be binding on someone in authority which his client was not in authority as he was not in financial authority to make a direction. He further put before Justice Allen David, Justice Don Sawong and Justice Stephen Kassman that it was a misconception to think that ministers can direct section 32 officers or secretaries of departments to release funding as they (ministers) have no financial authority or powers to do so except the department secretaries who are the section 32 officers
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Papua New Guinea Breaking NewsPapua New Guinea daily News updates Let Your Voice be heard: Submit your news articles, commentaries, letters , Photos, Media Releases etc to us on this email: pngfacts@gmail.com
Mining & PetroleumTop Links |