A former Papua New Guinea army leader, Major-General Jerry Singirok, is furious after being arrested and charged under the Capital Markets Act.

He was a trustee of Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd, part of a superannuation agency with 20,000 unit holders, but its trustee licence was revoked last year.

General Singirok said the agency was already embroiled in legal action over that revocation and he said his arrest on Wednesday was aimed at undermining that action.

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He said Task Force Shield, which he said had been set up by Trades Minister Richard Maru, had made a series of allegations about the degree of oversight at Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd.

The Post-Courier reported that Singirok was released on 6000 kina (NZ$2700) bail.

“They said that we did not audit, [but] we got audited, annual audits for the past 10 years,” he said.

“They said we didn’t do that. [They claimed] we continued to function without consulting our unit holders, which is wrong.

“There is a list of complaints, and as I said, it is now going to be subjected to a court. What’s important is that they are using the Capital Markets Act to charge us.”

General Singirok said in a Facebook post that he had spent his entire life fighting for the rights of the ordinary people and he would clear his name after what he is calling a “witchhunt”.

He said he had been a member of the superannuation operator since 1989.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.