Former Tahiti President denies graft

The former French Polynesian president, Gaston Flosse, has defended the use of public funds during the period he was in power as he and several other politicians try to avoid an order to reimburse $US3 million.

A probe by the French accounts office has identified and confirmed a setof expenses which it says matched no real activity linked to the running of his government in the years 1996 to 2004.

It says it found a hidden way of accounting which allowed for the illicit withdrawal of public funds and which it described as a system designed to deceive, Radio New Zealand International.

Last week, Flosse failed to have the case dismissed by the French supreme court whose decision means the matter is to be referred to the French Polynesian assembly for debate.

He has now also written to all assembly members, affirming that he did no wrong, and he has just appeared before the assembly’s finance committee which however has rejected his explanations.

One assembly member, Hiro Tefaarere, has dismissed Flosse’s appeal and called it surreal, ironic and pathetic.