The former management board of Papua New Guinea's Goroka Base Hospital has denied Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's accusation that 12 million US dollars allocated for the hospital's refurbishment had been misused.
The newspaper, The National, reports that the board, headed by David Wong, claims they never received the funding committed for the hospital by Mr O'Neill at the 2011 annual Goroka Show.
The former board was removed in May after staff at the hospital withdrew services in protest at the failure of management to address ongoing staff shortages and lack of required materials.
During a visit last week to the run-down hospital, the Prime Minister said there was nothing to show for the 12 million dollars he had committed over a three year period.
But in a statement, the former board said that apart from annual operational recurrent budgets, the promised funding never reached the Goroka Base Hospital accounts.
