* Melaba fine $5,000
* Oto’s case moved to today
* Tome’s trial, tomorrow
Melaba fine $5,000
THE Inland Revenue Division (IRD) officer facing corruption charges has been fined $5,000 yesterday in the Honiara Magistrates’ Court.
Leslie Melaba, 36, was sentenced after pleading guilty to two counts of official corruption.
Principal Magistrate Tearo Beneteti imposed a fine of $4,000 in default of two months for the first official corruption charge and $5,000 fine in default of three months for the second count of official corruption.
She then ordered the both sentences to run concurrently meaning Mr Melaba will only pay $5,000 fine.
Failure to pay up the fine will result in a three month jail term.
A further order was also made for Melaba to pay $300 as compensation to Farmset Ltd.
Melaba is the fourth person to be arrested by Task-force Janus since the taskforce was established in August 2016, between the Ministry of Police and Ministry of Finance, specifically to target fraud within the public service.
Mr Melaba was a tax auditor and investigation officer to the IRD under the Ministry of Finance and Treasury at the time he committed the offense.
His duty as an Audit and Investigation Officer includes auditing and investigating business with High Risk in respect to tax, charge and penalised business according to discrepancies, providing tax education to tax payers and register business that are not yet register.
The court had heard that on 2 March 2016, Melaba sent an email during working hour using his office email address on the office computer to the Farmset Branch Manager.
In that email, Melaba corruptly asked for 11 pairs of Hicut Brown Safety Boots to be purchased at half price of $250 for himself and in return, he promised to reduce the tax penalties of Farmset Limited of their assessed PAYE.
On another date on 18 March 2016, Melaba sent another email to the Branch Manager of Farmset, corruptly asking for $3,500 and that money to be given to him.
In return, Mr Melaba said he would remove all the Farmset penalties.
The Farmset Branch manager however did not do what Melaba asked him to do and as a result Melaba did not receive the 11 boots or the $3,500.
The matter was reported by the Farmset Branch Manager.
Public Solicitor’s lawyer Daniel Kwalai represented Melaba while Public Prosecutor Olivia Ratu appeared for the Crown.
Oto’s case moved to today
The case of the former government officer accused of corruptly receiving more than $750,000 of public funds through dishonest tender will be brought back to the court again today.
The trial on the case the former financial controller of the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services Stephen Jude Oto, who faces 11 counts of official corruption commenced on Tuesday last week.
After the evidence of two witnesses, the defence had asked for an adjournment after receiving instructions from his client.
The adjournment was sought to allow the Amos Ngaingeri of L & L Lawyers to consult with his client first before the matter returns to the court.
The matter came to the court yesterday and was further adjourned to today.
Ota was the first public officer to have been arrested by Taskforce Janus, a partnership between the Ministry of Police and Ministry of Finance, set up specifically to target fraud within the public service.
At the time of his arrest, Oto was the Financial Controller of the Ministry of Police as well as a member of the ministry’s tender board.
It was alleged that on 26 March 2015, Oto was appointed as a member of the Ministry of Police National Security and Correctional Services Ministerial Tender Board.
A requirement of this appointment was that he familiarised himself with the processes set out in the Solomon Islands Financial Instructions.
It was alleged that between 1 December 2015 and 18 August 2016, Jahman Enterprise, a company Oto allegedly set up and owned, answered calls for tenders and had been awarded business contracts for service to the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services on 11 different occasions.
A number of these transactions have required Certificate of Registration of Business name from the Company Haus to be submitted together with the tender.
Police alleged Oto, on a number of occasions, supplied a falsified Certificate of Registration of Business name, removing his own name from this certificate and replacing it with the name Edward Laufooa, to conceal his identity.
His business Jahman Enterprise was alleged to have subsequently invoiced the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services, which had made payments totalling up to $756,087.24 Jahman Enterprises for these services.
Director of Public Prosecutions Ronald Bei Talasasa and Public Prosecutor Freliz Fakarii are conducting the trial.
Assisting them are prosecutors Dalcy Belapitu and Patricia Tabepuda.
Tome’s trial, tomorrow
TRIAL of the former Minister of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, David Tome, who faces conversion charges, has been moved to Wednesday.
The hearing on the case of Tome who is facing 14 counts of conversion was scheduled to start yesterday, and proceed through to May 25.
However, Public Prosecutor Ishmael Kekou yesterday made an application for an adjournment.
This is to allow him to provide some disclosures that were just handed to him by the police, before yesterday’s court proceedings.
Mr Kekou also said he has obtained additional statements from witnesses which he will also need to hand over to the defence.
A third ground he submitted to ask for the adjournment was that, after conferencing the Crown’s witnesses, it was found that the witnesses stories are not in accordance to what they had earlier stated and might affect the current charges against Mr Tome.
As a result of this, prosecution are intending to amend the charges.
It will be known in court tomorrow if the charges are amended or not.
The defence did not object to the application made for the adjournment.
Principal Magistrate Ricky Iomea having heard from both counsels granted the application for the adjournment.
He warned that this would be the last adjournment in this matter, and that the trial must proceed on Wednesday.
Mr Kekou will be taking over this matter from his colleague Bradley Dalipanda who was previously looking after the case.
Mr Dalipanda took over the case just recently, after his colleague Andrew Kelesi who was in carriage of this matter left overseas for study.
He however handed this matter over to Mr Kekou as he will be engaged with other court cases, up until June and therefore will not be available for this trial.
The Member of Parliament for Baegu/Asifola is accused of converting $67, 170 that was supposed to be for a tree farming project in his constituency.
Prosecution alleged that on 27 June 2011, Shem Tome on behalf of the community association owned and registered as Grass Root Economic Development Community (GREDC) which was involved in tree farming or reforestation in Baegu/Asifola Constituency, submitted their application for the amount of $80,000 to their MP, Tome, through the Forestry office in Auki.
The money was meant for buying tools and materials for reforestation.
After going through some process, the Ministry of Finance approved and paid the amount of $80,000 on 24 August 2011 from the Government Account for this project.
Police investigators however, alleged Tome collected the cheque on an unknown date from the Ministry of Finance and later deposited it into his constituency account on 9 September 2011 at the ANZ bank in Honiara.
He then allegedly withdrew various amounts of money on various dates on September 2011 totalling up to $67, 170.
The money, according to the proposal, should be paid to Honiara Hardware for tools and materials in full and not for withdrawal in single cheques as the accused allegedly did.
The constituents have no idea whether or not the payment was made until a forestry officer made it known to one of them who in turn reported the matter to the police.
Michael Pitakaka of Michael Pitakaka Law Chamber represents Tome.
