Allegations of high-level money laundering in PNG

Transcript

Papua New Guinea's prime minister Peter O'Neill has called for an investigation into allegations of high-level money laundering.

The allegations stem from a secretly-filmed video aired by Australian broadcaster SBS last week which has provoked outrage among PNG citizens tired of corruption in public office.

Johnny Blades has more.

In the SBS segment lawyers discuss how to collude with political leaders in PNG to shift stolen money into Australian bank accounts and real estate.  An Australian lawyer tells an undercover campaigner from the anti-graft NGO Global Witness that PNG politicians no longer deal in big wads of cash, but prefer transactions be made in "dribs and drabs".

LAWYER: You've got to make sure that it's a not going to be attacked as money laundering.  It will have to be something that didn't raise suspicion, something that was ostensibly commercial.

Peter O'Neill has called for patience as inter-departmental authorities undertake thorough investigations.  However the former attorney general, Kerenga Kua, says he has no confidence in the prime minister's mandated probe.  Mr Kua was sacked last year after calling on Mr O'Neill to step aside to allow for a probe into the prime minister's alleged role in illegal state payments to a law firm.  An arrest warrant for Mr O'Neill had been effected by the anti-corruption unit Taskforce Sweep who Mr Kua says has been leading the way in prosecuting high-level corruption.

KERENGA KUA:  The same government is known to be suppressing the Sweep team and destroying it, dismantling it and not funding it.  When they are the only ones doing the right thing and scoring points, massive points and yet because they come up against the government, the same government runs them into the drain and then tries and claim credit for things.  I haven't seen anything, (like it), it's just all deception.

A victim of his own achievements, the chairman of Taskforce Sweep, Sam Koim says his unit has been very successful with both criminal and leadership prosecutions. 

SAM KOIM:  So many leaders being referred and a number of them dismissed from office, also some politicians prosecuted and jailed. We've got public servants and businesspeople jailed for fraud and corruption charges. We've actually placed a lot of people in an uncomfortable position and as a result they've reacted in all manner of ways to protect themselves.

Task Force Sweep has noted a decline in the established traditions and professional ethics of lawyers in PNG.  Meanwhile, Kerenga Kua and others are calling for the involvement of Australians in money laundering in PNG to be investigated by Australian authorities.  As the Governor of PNG's Eastern Highlands province, Julie Soso, explains, PNG's public is fed up with the benefits of the country's resource development being siphoned off by corruption.

JULIE SOSO:  We need to stop corruption because our country is just a developing nation.  We have so much resources there and these resources must turn into profitable gains and benefits for our people at large.  It has to start with zero tolerance in corruption.

Citizens groups in PNG are organising a peaceful protest to parliament next month against systemic corruption and money laundering.