Paul Tiensten

The Honourable 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.

Tiensten was first elected to parliament in 2002 and was appointed as the Chairman of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Gas and Energy Development. He was later appointed Trade and Industry Minister on 12 November 2003 and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade between 2005 and 2007 under then Prime Minister Michael Somare.

He was re-elected in 2007 for a second term of Parliament as Minister for National Planning and District Development, but lost his portfolio in August 2011 when a defection of MPs saw the government of Michael Somare disbanded.

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.

Sam Koim, the chairman of the anti-corruption investigation team Task Force Sweep, announced in December 2011 that he may be investigating the Taiwan diplomatic scandal in early 2012.

...
Wikipedia