The bastard is going to jail!

A little while back I shared about an incident in which we had some items stolen from us. These items were meant to be delivered to one of Eli’s uncle’s in the village but never actually reached their destination. Instead – the nails, flour, oil and betelnut ended up as the loot of a conman and dishonest prick.

This situation has now gone on for three months and I’ve had enough – after putting a little pressure on the clan back in Kaubasis to assist with this situation – I have now been asked for a statement which in actual fact will be hand delivered tomorrow to the Commander at Chuave Police Station.

What will follow is anyone’s guess although I am told that the local constabulary are very keen to arrest the culprit.

I just finished writing this statement and here it is:

5th of February, 2009

Robert Schilt
& Elizabeth Duna
PO Box 919
Goroka, EHP
(h) *******

Copies: Commander, Chuave Police Station
Pastor Russell Poka, Kaubasis
Chairman, Kiango Elementary School
Village Magistrate, Kaubasis Community
Village Magistrate, Kiango Community

Re: Statement regarding stolen items by Simon Gandi

Dear Sir,

We have been asked to write this statement by Pastor Russell Poka from Kaubasis regarding several items that were stolen from us by Mr. Simon Gandi. Pastor Russel has been helping us out with this incident as he lives closer to Simon’s village – Kiango.

The incident occurred some time during November and we had purchased various items which we planned on sending back to Kaubasis to be given to Jacobmai (ex Village Magistrate) whom was doing some building work on a new haus man for the family. The items purchased included the following:

6x bags of Nails	K24	(approximate value)
1x 10Kg bag of flour	K25	(approximate value)
1x large container oil	K10	(approximate value)
Buai, daga & kamban	K10	(approximate value)

On the Saturday we went to the Main Market area in Goroka to try and find someone that was going back to the village and was willing to carry and deliver the above items to Jacobmai. After hanging around the Highlands PMV bus stop for 3 hours without any luck in finding someone we could trust, we decided to go home as it was getting late. We made a decision to return the next day (Sunday) and try again.

We returned on the Sunday and after waiting a little while we happened to see Simon Gandi who we had met the day before and who was aware that we were looking for someone to help us out – Simon mentioned to us that he was going to Mangiro and was willing to carry and deliver the bag of items for us. Simon was known to me (by face) for about a year and I was led to believe by Simon during our conversations that he was married to woman from Mangiro or nearby.

After explaining to Simon that we needed to get a bag of items back to Kaubasis – he very kindly offered to help us out. I had a short meeting with my wife (Eli) and we decided to trust Simon with the task as he was known to me and we thought that he could be trusted to deliver the items.

The goods were in a white flour bag that we purchased the day before at the markets and before giving the bag to Simon we decided to have it sewn up by one of the local shoemakers. I offered to buy him a can of coke but Simon refused and asked for the PMV fare instead – I gave him K5 as contribution towards the cost of the bus fare.

The instructions we gave Simon was to deliver the bag to John (owner and operator) of the Guest House at Mangiro. Simon agreed to doing this for us. In fact my wife asked for his full name so that we could relay this information on to John – the name he gave us on the day was “Gene Tisa” and we were assured that he was definitely going to Mangiro. We were to later to find out that his name was Simon Gandi and not Gene Tisa as he had originally told us.

We rang John later that day and then again on the Sunday to check whether the bag had arrived. We asked John to hold on to the bag (once it arrived) and get word back to Jacobmai to pick it up from the Guest House. John was more than happy to help us out. Unfortunately the bag never made it to Mangiro and was therefore never hand delivered to John.

Over the next few weeks and months the following was attempted to try and resolve this situation:

My wife (Elizabeth) met up with Simon near the Goroka markets about two weeks after the incident and during conversation Simon assured Eli that he had given the bag to someone at Mangiro. My wife asked who he had given the bag to and interestingly Simon was not able to recall the name of this person. On the day he got Eli’s mobile number and kindly offered to compensate us for the lost items. The “sorry” nor compensation were ever given to us.

On another occasion Pastor Russell Poka met up with Simon near the Kakaruk market and we were once again given assurance by Simon Gandi that he would apologise and replace the items.

On at least one occasion several clan members from Kaubasis walked up the H’Way to try and find Simon. By this stage we knew his name not to be Gene Tisa but Simon Gandi and that he was a elementary school teacher at Kiango. Apparently there’s another Simon Gandi living at Rondi-ku and this person was confronted by clan members who believed that this was the Simon Gandi that had stolen the goods from us. This situation was most embarrassing for the people from Kaubasis that confronted the “wrong” Simon.

Eventually we tracked Simon Gandi down to Kiango and Pastor Russell together with some of the other members of the Kaubasis community walked all the way to Kiango to deliver the necessary paper work to the local Village Magistrate so that we could initiate court action.

A date was set for the court and Simon informed but unfortunately Simon Gandi never bothered to turn up on the day. We were told on the day that he had left Kiango the day before to attend to some urgent business down in Lae.

At this point I made it clear to Pastor Russell and also other members of the Kaubasis community that Simon Gandi had been given ample opportunity to apologise and compensate us for the stolen items. I made it clear that I wasn’t going to let the matter rest and that it was probably appropriate and timely to get the local Police involved to assist in seeing justice carried out and Simon Gandi pay the price for his careless and selfish actions.

The cost to date for what Simon Gandi has done is now more than just the cost of replacing the stolen goods. As well as ourselves being inconvenienced by this ordeal so have many other people from Kaubasis.

An itemised list of what I would now consider to be fair compensation from Simon Gandi is as follows:

Stolen Goods (see list above):	K 79
Apologise to the other Simon Gandi from Rongi-ku	K100
Effort by people from Kaubasis to find Simon Gandi	K100
Effort by people from Kaubasis with court and police	K100
Inconvenience to the two of us	K 50
	K429

The issue has now gone on for months and ample opportuntiy has been given to Simon to apologise and right the wrong that he committed. He has chosen for what ever reason not to do this and avoid at all costs any chance to apologise. My understanding is that Simon is a School Teacher in his village of Kiango. A teacher is deemed to be a trusted and respected member of their community, it is a position that is given the responsibility for the education and moral upbringing of children. On this occasion Simon has broken this trust and has brought shame on his family, clan members and students and the general community of Kiango.

Based on what I have testified in this statement together with the facts given I would like to request that this situation now be dealt with by the local Police.

Yours sincerely,

——————————          —————————–
Robert Schilt                           Elizabeth Duna