THE Royal Commission of Inquiry has begun hearing witnesses statements and evidence into the government’s obtaining of K1.239 billion loan from the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS).
There was a total of nine witnesses evidence and statements that were set to be presented today. However, only one witness was present before the commissioner, and that is the late Sir Michael Somare’s evidence statement.
The other eight witnesses include Sir Julius Chan, Sir John Kaputin, Sir Rabbie Namaliu, Sir Charles Lepani, Dr Clement Waine, Dr Lawrence Sause and Dr Solomon Awili.
Today’s session saw the presentation of evidence that was received by a number of witnesses on the introduction phase of the inquiry.
Former Chief Justice and the chairman of the inquiry, Sir Salamo Injia said the timely conduct of the inquiry, has been affected by many factors including those going to the commission to comply with statutory requirements from the commission of inquiry as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.
“But this time the commission has conducted a good portion of the pelimenary work that is done to set the stage for the substantive hearing to proceed today.
“A total of 90 witnesses are expected to be called to give evidence. Fifty-eight witnesses have appeared before commission and out of that 43 of these witnesses have delivered to the commission, a sanity of their proposed evidence and revelent documents,” Sir Salamo said.
Eight of these witnesses were not available to present their evidence, however, the commission has extended their summons to appear before the commission on respective dates as set by the commission.
