Paul Tiensten

Paul Tiensten (born 1966) is a former Papua New Guinean politician and former National Alliance Member of Parliament for Pomio Open. Tiensten is currently serving a nine-year sentence for corruption.

Tiensten holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Papua New Guinea and a Masters in Resources Law at the Center for Energy, Petroleum, Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Scotland.

He served as a Director of Petroleum at the Department of Petroleum and Energy for the government of Papua New Guinea and was also a Project Manager for the World Bank funded Gas Development and Utilization Technical Assistance Project.

Controversy

Taiwan diplomatic scandal In 2008, Singaporean businessman Wu Shih-tsa alleged in a Taiwanese court that six Papua New Guinea officials, including Paul Tiensten, personally profited from a payment of A$19 million from Taiwan in a bid to strengthen diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea. Tiensten admitted to meeting the Taiwanese officials, but denied the allegations of corruption.

Kikori misappropriation controversy In January 2010 Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations, Mark Maipakai, who is the member of parliament for Kikori, alleged that the Office of the Minister for National Planning and District Development had been involved in a 220 million kina (US$81.4 million) fraud, together with four landowner associations in Kikori, Gulf Province. The funds were intended for infrastructure projects in Kikori, including roads, houses and a hospital, but were never used for this purpose. Maipakai called on Paul Tiensten to explain why the funds were released by his office without proper project submission, status report, accounting or acquittals. Tiensten denied the allegations of fraud, explaining that the four landowner associations had signed the Benefits Sharing Agreement for the Liquefied Natural Gas project, and so the Government, in return, made the commitment to facilitate the release of infrastructure funds to them.

Subsequently the chairman of one of the four landowner associations, the Kikori Gas Pipeline Landowner Association (KGPLA), Mark Sarong, was arrested and charged with ten counts of misappropriation and ten counts of conspiracy. Sarong allegedly went behind the board of directors of the KGPLA and changed the signatories so that he could sign cashable cheques worth substantial amounts, including one cheque for K4 million. Tiensten, with the Minister of Finance, had authorised the release of 17.6 million kina [US$6.6 million] to the KGPLA.

Tiensten was later arrested in November 2011 by the Investigation Task Force Sweep on three further charges for diverting PGK 3.4 million of government funding to Tolpot Services Ltd, of which he was both a shareholder and a director.

In March 2014, he was convicted of misappropriation over 10 million kina, and sentenced to nine years of hard labour.