PPL Staff Arrested for Stealing K38, 000 (US$12,000) from Company
Police have arrested one of PNG Power Ltd’s (PPL) staff members in Kimbe on 2nd July 2016 for allegedly stealing K38, 000 from the company between 2014 and 2015.
The male staff, Mr David Bartholomew, is a senior customer service officer at the PPL Kimbe office and handles huge amount of cash on a daily basis.
He was transferred to the PPL Bialla Office in December 2014 to relief another officer and that was when he allegedly collected money from a major customer and didn’t enter these collections into the PPL revenue system.
PPL’s internal investigators revealed that he was conspiring with a major customer, a foreigner, based in Bialla who paid the accused between K2, 000 – K3, 000 in cash monthly. The customer was supposed to pay more than K5, 000 to PPL however, the customer was paying less to the staff member as per their deal.
When the customer gave him the money, the accused collected the cash and issued manual receipts to the customer and hid the receipt book. He didn’t enter these payments into the billing system.
The receipt copies were attached to the total collection in the system but the total revenue couldn’t balance in the system.
The accused was doing this before PPL impose a policy in December 2015 to go cashless in all centres. When the company imposed this policy, the company also carried major disconnections across the country to find out why PPL was running low on revenue in all centres.
Moreover, PPL disconnected customers who didn’t have billing records in the system and yet were consuming huge load of electricity.
In Bialla, investigations revealed that this particular customer’s bills were not posted in the revenue system and he was disconnected.
The customer then fronted up at the office with all his receipts to prove his payments and he admitted that he was paying his bills to the accused.
In February 2015, the accused admitted his offence and PPL engaged police in Kimbe to establish evidence of conspiracy between the accused and the particular customer. The accused also admitted to fellow staff members in Kimbe that he received money from the customer and didn’t pay into PPL account.
Facts and evidence were established against him and he was taken into the police station for questioning on 3rd June and 23rd June 2016 when he escaped from the police station in Kimbe.
On 29th June 2016, he was apprehended at the PPL Training College in Port Moresby and escorted by two policemen back to Kimbe on 1st July 2016 for formal charges and arrest.
He was officially charged and arrested on 2nd July 2016 under the Criminal Code Act on two counts:
- Abuse of Public Office
- Stealing (as a public servant)
The accused was refused bail on the grounds that he fled to Port Moresby on 23rd June. He appeared before the Kimbe district court for mention on 04 July 2016 and the case was adjourned for 14 days to allow police to finalise the court file.
