The Papua New Guinea Government expects to save millions of kina in legal fees starting next year, when it begins implementing recommendations of an inquiry into the processes and procedures of law firms.
Yesterday, Justice Warwick Andrews, presented the Report on the Commission of Inquiry into Processes and Procedures used to Brief Out Matters to Law Firms, and Processes and Procedures for Paying Public Monies to Law Firms.
Over the last five years, various questions have been raised about the operations of law firm.
Government departments like finance have also appeared before the Pubic accounts committee to explain why they pay huge legal bills have been paid.
This commission of inquiry took on the task of investigating where a large part of government spending was going. Over the years, government legal bills have exceeded more than 50 million kina.
In many instances, it has been very difficult to trace, where the payments have gone and who received them.
“This area of brief outs has been the subject of abuse for many years, well before this government came into office,” PM O’Neill said in receiving the report.
“As a government we have been receiving the raw end of this discussion, mainly because we’re trying to clean up the mess that has been there for a while.
“There are some issues that are still out there for public debate and of course some issues are before the courts.
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