According to reports, the money was supposed to be paid to people who lost property along the Chuave and Ganigle section of the Highlands Highway in the Simbu province, under the program.
However the money never reached them, instead being paid to imposters and other corrupt individuals.
Kundiawa police conducted an investigation after the payments were made and arrested one man for fraudulently receiving and using K165,000 of the monies. Apart from this, no other investigation has been done.
|
|
After the K54 million disappeared, a second assessment was done of the same section of the highway and this time, the claim went up to K68 million, swelled by even more bogus claims.
This second assessment was scuttled with no monies paid out and the Department engaged a firm to map the claims using GPS and better survey techniques. The cost of this exercise is now K7.2 million.
The amazing thing about this story is that K54 million could disappear with so little fuss. One would think that an official enquiry backed with police action would immediately kick off once the fraud was discovered, the highlands highway being just too important for this nonsense. But this was not the case. Instead, the department again did a reassessment and almost paid another whopping K68 million which would have been paid to a lot more fraudsters.
