By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A staff member for MP Adem Somyurek has alleged he didn’t have to do “electorate officer work” during up to seven casual shifts in the office.
“I was told not to go into the office,” Jacob Cripps allegedly told the IBAC Operation Watts inquiry – an allegation that Mr Somyurek said was “absolutely untrue”.
IBAC Counsel Assisting, Chris Carr asserted: “It was effectively just a charitable thing that he would be given what I’ll characterize as free money by the taxpayer because he was going through a hard time.”
Mr Somyurek, who signed Mr Cripps’ time sheet, replied: “Not true. Not true… Why would I do that?”
Mr Carr said Mr Cripps was immediately afterwards engaged in “factional work on your behalf”.
“I wasn’t that desperate to have him, I can tell you. Like, I’m not going to do that. No way,” Mr Somyurek replied.
“Because that would be the most egregious form of corruption, wouldn’t it, Mr Somyurek?”
“Yes.”
According to Mr Cripps’ time sheet, he was ‘working on project’.
The official time sheet stipulated that payments couldn’t be claimed for “party-political activities” – a detail that Mr Somyurek said he had not noticed.
Mr Somyurek said he didn’t know what work Mr Cripps was doing “but I did not tell him not to go to my office.”
“I mean, this guy had been moved on from a federal MP’s office because he switched factions, so … I felt … honour bound to help find him a job.
“But not free money.”
Another Somyurek electoral staffer was allegedly paid for working full-day shifts in two electoral offices on the same day.
According to his timesheet, Salazar Youhorn had purportedly been ‘working on a project’ from 9am-5.06pm on 18 June 2020.
He was working from home due to Covid-19, the timesheet signed by Mr Somyurek stated.
Mr Youhorn was also paid for working on the same day in Clarinda MP Meng Heang Tak’s office for “data processing/office admin”.
Mr Somyurek said Mr Youhorn regularly worked on a particular weekday in his office.
There seemed to be a “logistical problem”, in that Mr Youhorn seemed to be at home “working for two offices”.
“Maybe someone said something to someone in my office that he’s going to be in Heang’s office, so he should be doing another day for my office.
“There might have been a bit of a confusion like that. I can’t see anything sinister in it.”
When asked if Mr Youhorn was doing factional work, he said Mr Youhorn was part of the “Cambodian clique”.
“They’ve got numbers in the party, so let’s put it that way.”
He admitted during lockdown, Mr Youhorn was doing “probably not much” work.
