Papua New Guinea's ICAC celebrates one year but we need to learn to fight corruption from experiences

 Internal Revenue Commission's Commissioner-General, Sam Koim says, corruption or dishonesty stops P-N-G from developing.

Mr. Koim said this, after attending a seminar on the Independent Commission Against Corruption, or ICAC, on Friday.

He says, the legal community and all government departments, as well as agencies, must fight corruption together.


Before Sam Koim assumed the role as Commissioner General of the Internal Revenue Commission, he was a state lawyer with the office of the public solicitors.

Mr Koim was defending the state om a couple of court cases at the Waigani National and Supreme Courts in Port Moresby.

He was later appointed by the then Peter O'Neill government as  Chairman of Task Force Sweep for three-and-a-half years.

During last Friday's seminar on ICAC, which celebrated a year followings its establishment, Mr Koim his experiences while fighting corruption as Chairman of Task Force Sweep.

Among the attendees were the Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, ICAC Commissioner Andrew Forbes, the PNG Law Society President Hubert Namani and other members of the legal fraternity

Mr Koim's experience shared centres around  lawyers conduct that can mean they are gatekeepers or gateway to facilitating corruption

He  recounted the achievements of the now-disbanded Task Force Sweep, which he chaired to highlight the critical challenges that lay ahead of ICAC.


He said his team for three and a half years recorded 350 cases - 93 were investigated and 22 convicted. They used only 15. 5 million kina.

During that time they  also collaborated with Singaporean Authorities which resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of two people for diverting K100m belonging to Papua New Guinea.

He said their work resulted in K242m in tax assessments of which K25.5m was collected at the time of their disbandment.

Under Proceeds of Crime proceedings, they recovered about K8.3m.

He said a dozen public servants were dismissed as a result of Task Force Sweeps work.

Mr Koim has called for greater collaboration not only between the legal community but also among all government departments and agencies to fight corruption which is currently the biggest impediment to the country's growth and development.

Justice Secretary Dr Erick Kwa has told a lawyers seminar on ethics recently that ICAC is a result of one of the reforms within the Attorney General's department and its been set up by way of law but it may become operational in four years time.