BY JERRY SEFE
The wife of a deceased public servant was ‘in a state of shock’ yesterday when told her husband was still on the PNG Government payroll.
She shed tears when told that her late husband, who died in 2016, was paid every fortnight up until last May when the Department of Personnel Management put a stop and removed his name from the government’s Alesco Payroll System.
The fact that he was still on payroll for over a year and a half and where the money ended up is what shocked the mother of four because to date, the government has yet to pay out his service entitlements.
Mrs Gisella Buleka’s husband Robert Buleka passed away on December 12, 2015. He was the Director of the National Film Institute (NFI) in Goroka, Eastern Highlands province.
Worse for Mrs Buleka and her children were yet to come, and that they might not get to see their father’s entitlements.
The crooks who doctored his file number and collected his pay also used his name to get a massive loan of more than K14,000 from a financial institution in Port Moresby and another of K4000 from another finance company.
Both loans were obtained in the early part of 2017 and the interest is building as of government pay number 8, 2017.
The NFI affairs are funded and run by the National Cultural Commission, a government agency based in Port Moresby that is also responsible for the National Performing Arts Troupe and the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.
Mrs Buleka is an elementary teacher at the Tafeto Primary School in Daulo district of Eastern Highlands Province. She was working in her backyard garden when Post-Courier broke the news to her by phone yesterday morning.
Her husband’s case is just the tip of the iceberg at NCC. Further investigations have revealed that two other deceased employees, a driver who died in 2015 and an executive secretary that passed away in 2016 remained on the payroll with their pays being collected by unknown persons.
Mrs Buleka’s eldest son Bonaventure also said it was so painful to bear when struggling with financial issues to pay for his other younger sibling’s school fees at the same time awaiting their father’s entitlements while someone else is benefiting using his name.
Bonaventure, who is working part-time to support his mum, said they were told that their father was put off from payroll and they had never been receiving any payments since his death up until today.
“We just came to realise that after two years of awaiting his entitlements it is hard to believe our late father is still on payroll and we never received or benefited from the payments,” said Bonaventure.
The whistle blowers in the NCC, who exposed the case of late Mr Buleka, said in a brief interview yesterday said investigations into the massive payroll and recruitment fraud kicked off yesterday and police are now into day one of the case.