The Sydney Morning Herald

The minister, the Star and the rules of the game Sean Nicholls, Matthew Moore, Ilya Gridneff
March 14, 2012

Warning: people may find some language offensive

THE Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Belden Namah, allegedly sexually harassed a blackjack dealer at the Star casino last year before being thrown out for threatening staff while drunk.

Despite this, the casino readmitted Mr Namah, an opposition MP at the time, after it realised he and his colleagues planned to gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Herald understands.

But Mr Namah denies he is the person described in five separate incident reports, including one in which he is named by casino staff. His lawyer, Greg Sheppard, said Mr Namah ''did not misconduct himself'' at the casino.

''Until we are provided with the incident reports in question, Mr Namah is unable to comment further on how his name appears on these reports, except to say that if it does, they are mistaken,'' Mr Sheppard said.

Mr Namah is a former PNG military officer who became forestry minister in the government of Michael Somare before joining the opposition, which deposed Sir Michael last year.

Incident reports by staff show Mr Namah and two colleagues were gambling in the Sovereign Room for high rollers when approached about 7am on April 16 last year and asked to stop drinking ''as they were deemed to be approaching intoxication''.

A blackjack dealer's statement said that after being asked to stop drinking, Mr Namah began ''teasing me by asking my mobile number''. Mr Namah is then alleged to have asked him: ''Can I f--- you tonight?''.

When he was being removed from the casino, Mr Namah allegedly told either a manager or security guard: ''You may be big but I will knock you on your f---ing arse''.

A former duty manager, Elizabeth Ward, has previously revealed a ''minister from a neighbouring government'' was ejected from the casino last year. This is now understood to be Mr Namah.

Ms Ward, who is fighting the casino over her dismissal, also said a senior casino executive subsequently ordered a manager to apologise to the minister. She had been advised the minister was allowed back in several hours later after executives realised he and two friends had deposited in a casino account $800,000 to gamble.

A spokesman for Echo Entertainment confirmed a customer had been removed and later let back in. ''From the time the customer was removed for showing signs of intoxication to when he was readmitted, the gaming manager who responded to this incident was not aware of the full nature of the alleged comments made by the customer,'' he said.

"Senior management only became aware of the alleged comments after the customer had been invited back to the gaming area."

Asked if Mr Namah was readmitted after saying how much he planned to gamble, the spokesman said: ''No, the customer was allowed to re-enter the gaming area after returning to his hotel room for a period of five hours and after he was spoken to by another gaming manager and a general manager and warned that his behaviour was unacceptable and would not be tolerated.''

In her review of the Star's licence last December, Gail Furness, SC, said witnesses had commented on a ''change in focus'' at the casino, which had led to more lenient treatment of high rollers, including some who had been ''permitted to misconduct themselves with little or no consequences, such as ashtrays and chips being thrown, staff being abused, threatened or sexually harassed''.

But she concluded: ''In some cases, no record could be found of the incident, in most others the casino operator took some action against the player and the allegation was not supported.''

The Echo spokesman said staff were asked about the incident in the review but ''no adverse findings'' were made.

Ms Furness is heading a new inquiry into the Star following allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-minister-the-star-and-the-rules-of-the-game-20120313-1uyka.html#ixzz1p2nEKQkc

Just get rid of these guy! He should be charged and locked up!

Didn't you all see the expose on pngblogs a few weeks back-this fellow (married?) searches Facebook to find white women to attract to PNG under false pretenses, when he tries to go to bed with them.

He is one VERY ROTTEN EGG!!!!!!!

Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, call the sweep team to investigate and can you sack him and appoint another deputy. This crazy lunatic is running this country to the dogs. Do something PM.

The PM isn't going to do anything because he needs Namah to be his blame kid for hard decisions. Somehow you must think that O'Neill is really interested in good governance and fighting corruption. He is not. All he is really interested in is maintaining his power after the 2012 elections because if he can remain PM, all kinds of doors to personal enrichenment will open up to him. He'll say anything and promise anything he needs to in order to get the votes. In that sense, he's no different from the c orrupt Somare.

All O'Neill has ever really cared about is making money, lots of it. This started with his NPF corruption and it has never actually stopped.

PM Peter O'Neill is not the white knight in shinning armour that everyone thinks he is. He's track record is as black as the other half of him. Its just that PNGeans have very short memories, maybe its wantokism, tolerance, ignorance, stupidity, call it what you want, its in the blood. All the majority of the MPs want to do is to get rich the fastest way in the shortest possible time.

Unfortunately the rot does not stop there it goes beyond that, to most Departmental Heads, not all but most that they appoint, especially those not on merit but as cronies of the pollies. These guys are put there to cover up the scheme tracks and then get rich in the process.

Then we go further down to the Public service, nothing gets down without extra payment for work that they are already paid to do. Bribe money is, what I think it is commonly known as. Not all Public Servants but unfortunately a huge number of them, those who deal with any kind of payment, provision of services etc..

Further down the line you have contractor and business people who are willing to pay large amounts of money to get what they want... I could go on but you get my drift. The list just goes on and on and on...

They call it appreciation, pacific way, liklik samting lo tok tenkiu, way bilong yumi, etc, but it is just common bribery and corruption.