MP Joseph Lelang is the latest to be implicated in the scandals surrounding Eremas Wartoto

MP Joseph Lelang has already been the subject of a Leadership Tribunal, where he pleaded guilty to failing to file his annual statements. He has also been recommended for prosecution by the Task Force Sweep, now the National Court is recommending his prosecution…

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Papua New Guinea court has recommended the prosecution of an MP for his role in facilitating a multi-million dollar fraud.

Eremas Wartoto was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Friday. The sentencing judge has recommended a MP, Joseph Lelang, also be prosecuted for his role in the fraud. 

On Friday, the National Court sentenced a businessman, Eremas Wartoto, to 10 years in prison after he misused US$2 million of public funds paid to his transport company for the renovation of a high school.

In his judgement, Justice George Manuhu said the then-public servant and now MP, Joseph Lelang, and another public servant Brian Kimmins, lied to the court in giving evidence against Wartoto.

Justice Manuhu found the pair had a role in facilitating the payments to Wartoto’s company for which he said they should be prosecuted.

If Mr Lelang is prosecuted, he would not be the first MP ensnared by Eremas Wartoto’s business dealings.

Wartoto rose to prominence in 2013 when a former planning minister, Paul Tiensten, was jailed for misappropriating US$3.6 million to Wartoto and his other company, Travel Air.

Sydney lawyer and mining venture capitalist, Renzie Duncan, is on the prowl again for Bougainville’s mineral wealth, with his old friend Philip Miriori,  the scandal-plagued, self-appointed head of the Me’ekamui Tribal Government.

This time its through Central Me’ekamui Exploration Limited, which is in partnership with Australian mining firm RTG Mining.

Company extracts indicate that Central Me’ekamui Exploration Limited, despite its very local name, is in fact a foreign enterprise.

This assertion is based on the fact it is 50% owned by Australian company, Central Exploration Pty Ltd.

Central Exploration Pty Ltd’s thriving head office is 266 Burns Bay Road, Lane Cove, New South Wales, Australia. This leafy address on Sydney’s north shore, is also the registered home address for Renzie Duncan.

Under the Investment Promotion Act 1992, a company which is 50% owned by a foreign entity is deemed a foreign enterprise and must apply for certification to conduct business in Papua New Guinea.

Section 41 of the Investment Promotion Act 1992 states it is an offence to carry on business without certification, punishable by a K100,000 fine.

There is no record with the Investment Promotion Authority that Central Me’ekamui Exploration Limited has applied for certification, despite the fact it has been clearly conducting business with RTG Mining.

However, this is not the first time Duncan, Miriori and the other Central Exploration Director, Michael Etheridge, have conducted business in Bougainville. 

The last time it was through Transpacific Ventures Limited.

In that case Transpacific Ventures informed investors:

‘In the past 12 months, TPV has negotiated and signed an Agreement (the “Cairns Agreement”) with the Sovereign Me’ekamui Tribal Government on an exclusive basis for 20 years, renewable, to advise customary landowners (the Me’ekamui) in developing their natural resources sector, including potential oil and gas, on the island of Bougainville, PNG and surrounding atolls and marine territories, and to participate with the Me’ekamui in such development and other business opportunities’.

Yes, that’s right, Philip Mioriri and his self-styled tribal government proposed to sign away the natural resources, landed and marine, across Bougainville. Clearly, he had no right to, and Transpacific Ventures had no legal business publishing this information to investors.

Of course the claim by President Momis that RTG mining ‘doesn’t have any money’, is rather ironic given that his preferred operator, BCL, cant even afford permanent staff – and has no means whatsoever to raise the sort of capital to develop Panguna.

But the core point all this squabbling between various minority interests distracts from is this – 98% of the people in and around Panguna oppose mining, under any industrial guise. They have suffered the environment and human loss.

The ordinary people – real landowners – don’t have government support, nor do they have access to the internet or media. Their voice is unheard, except when they protest and resist.

The re-entry of Duncan and Mirori, will be cynically used by the government to label all landowner resistance, simply a plot to bring in an alternative developer by the backdoor. If this is argued, it is a lie.

Landowners throughout the mine area remain opposed, like they have since 1963, when the first rumblings of Panguna began. Journalists will not report this. They don’t leave their offices, much less speak with someone who cant reply in english.

On the rare occasions they do leave their office, they knock on the door of Lawrence Daveona, Philip Mioriori and other individuals, who falsely claiming they somehow speak for all landowners, which they don’t. Of course the colonial powers did this back in the 1960s. Some poor old man, was wielded out to say yes, while the mothers cried no.

History has been a cruel teacher, it is unlikely the mothers of the land will allow the bulldozers through this time.

Oro Governor Gary Juffa speaking at a campaign gathering … explaining the qualities to look for in national leadership.

Source: Gary Juffa | Pacific Media Centre

I suspect that these Papua New Guinea elections have been so deliberately set to fail, leaving much room for fraud and confusion, that we will be distracted from what is really going on – the establishment of a dictatorship.

Already Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has his own special police unit that flies around Papua New Guinea escorting him in his private airlines, he has a special army unit of 40 exclusively for his callout, he controls the media and Public Service.

And, it seems, the Police and Defence commands — and perhaps the judiciary … the signs and red flags are blinking bright red now…

Yet many people do not see it at all. We are inching closer towards dictatorship and the ensuing bloodshed and violence that must come from the hostility towards it. But like lemmings and sheep, we are led to that reality with little resistance at all. Is this the Papua New Guinea we all believed in once upon a time?

Last Wednesday in Oro province provided a demonstration of how much the PNG government is not for PNG. It was also a demonstration of how democracy should not work.

For instance, the majority — between a third and a half — of Popondetta Urban voting age citizens have not voted because the current common roll does not have their names. Many citizens claim they had made the effort to update their details and were still turned away.

Preliminary roll ‘okay’
Meanwhile, Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato has advised that the preliminary roll can be used. This means he indirectly agrees that the EC failed to effectively update the 2017 roll. This instruction was obviously not made known to Electoral Commission officials managing the polling at the Independence Oval on Wednesday.

Many people who had taken time out and had travelled to vote were turned away angry and anxious. This election was certainly costing them. They will have to come back for the last day, but the slowness will probably ensure that a large group will not have been processed by the end of the polling at 4pm.

This will mean that democracy certainly did not prevail in this instance. In fact, many will probably agree that come the end of these elections, democracy was hardly a reality everywhere in Papua New Guinea.

This should hardly be a surprise given that we have actually endured a covert dictatorship and hardly realised it.

Own effort
Meanwhile, not a few of the learned are saying that everyone should have made their own effort to ensure they were registered.

A true statement we all would like to agree with. I was tempted to think this way too. Then I thought of my people in rural PNG. My uncles and aunts who do not read or write and are at once the greatest selfless humans I know and, despite whatever people think, are equal shareholders of this great nation, Papua New Guinea.

They too deserve to vote. They too deserve to be informed. They too have the right to be given the opportunity to decide whether they want to update their details on the common role or not.

May I just say to all my learned friends making such statements as “it’s your fault if you are not on the roll; stop whinging”, that this would be true if the awareness programme had been been carried out sufficiently and it would be true in a society which is totally literate and where means of communication are available to all, a society that, say, had more then just 40 years or so as an independent nation of 1000 tribes with their own language groupings and cultural peculiarities.

Such statements are also spiteful about our people. Many of our people who live in rural PNG do not have access to the benefits of technology and modern services and goods that you may have had and may have now.

Our people, remember them? Well some of these are the people who will adore you and feed you and love you selflessly when or should you ever go home for a visit from time to time.

It would also be a safe statement to make if Papua New Guinea were governed by a government which allowed information access for all. A government that made funding available for provincial governments and relevant information dissemination entities like the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).

Government by the people
Of course, that would have to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people …which this government clearly is not, if any of its decisions made in the last five years are anything to go by.

It is clear that the Electoral Commission failed. But the commission is not entirely to be blamed because, the buck stops at the top, and that’s the People’s National Congress (PNC) government of Peter O’Neill.

They have totally failed in the last five years to ensure that everyone was on the roll.

The awareness programme was an abysmal failure. Rural Papua New Guinea especially had virtually no knowledge of this. That’s 85 percent of PNG.

Adequately informed
Were our people adequately informed? They were not.

The Electoral Commission had five years to do this. It failed.

Just as it did with the K200 million national identity (NID) project. Deliberately too, it appears.

This government failed. Peter O’Neill failed

The 2017 Elections are looking very much like a failure.

A planned failure, perhaps … it has to be.

Sipping champagne
From the PNC government’s perspective, maybe they are chuckling and sipping champagne and congratulating each other on a job well done. Chaos provides opportunities for those who plan it to. Who knows?

Meanwhile in stark contrast, preparations for APEC seem to be going on very well. Surprise, surprise. Funding is abundantly available and preparatory meetings, plans, strategies and training and capacity testing efforts are well in progress. Not a few MPs whose companies will be involved in various services needed have already picked up hefty contracts.

So obviously the government can do a great job. If it suits them.

Ask yourself, is APEC more important then the democratic rights of a people to elect their leaders to represent their interests in Parliament?

This just shows how much the PNC government cares for its people. How much? In my measure, it was so weak and poor an effort, so pathetic, it was “zilch”.

Gary Juffa’s commentaries are frequently published by Asia Pacific Report with permission. This commentary is a combination of two of his latest pieces.

Source: PNGi Investigates

A special PNGi investigation, has revealed insider evidence that suspended States Enterprises Minister, William Duma, has a hidden interest in the Paga Hill Estate, a public-private venture valued at K3 billion.

In a country plagued by corruption, where politicians are seemingly more concerned with making personal profits that serving the nation, and where the law enforcement agencies are brutally under resourced, a new online database is poised to shake up the status quo and offer some hope to a beleaguered population.

Corruption thrives in Papua New Guinea because there is so little public access to information but now that is changing.

PNGi Portal is a groundbreaking online resource that provides access to both the details of company ownership and more than 20 years of anti-corruption investigations by government agencies.

Lawyers, journalists, academics and the public can now see who owns the companies that are being awarded dubious government contracts , they can track where politicians and public servants have been citied in official inquiries and they can link and cross reference the two sets of data.

Interested in a Paul Paraka? Just type the name and, with one click of a mouse, you can see that it appears in the company records of a long list of companies, including Klinki Rain Forest Limited, Kumu Builders, Kumu Construction, PB and Venna Ltd, PJ and Sons, PKP Consultancy Services, PKP Nominees, PPL Investments, PPM & Kids, PW & Kids, Siane No.s 1,2,3 and 4 and more…

But that is not all, you can also see the name Paul Paraka appears in twenty-two documents in the database of more than 500 reports, and with one click you can view not only the document but the very pages where the name appears!

All this is available to anyone via the internet and access is free.

Whether you are a lawyer or company executive interested in doing due diligence on a new client, potential business opportunity or an investment; a journalist writing a story in which an MP or a company features; a police officer investigating a potential crime; an academic or student researching a particular topic; or just a curious member of the public, the PNGi Portal provides access to a wealth of information that was previously inaccessible or completely hidden.

But the PNGi Portal does not stand alone, it has a sister website, PNGi Central, that demonstrates the functionality and power of the information available via the portal.

PNGi Central is a reporting hub that presents, in a range of different formats, the results of investigations by a network of journalists and academics. They are using the PNGi Portal to investigate not only corrupt deals but also the hidden and opaque systems of political and economic power that nurture and sustain them.

KEITH JACKSON

THE Waigani National Court has granted an order sought by electoral commissioner Patilias ‘Tomato’ Gamato (pictured) against the celebrated Papua New Guinean writer, blogger, commentator and social justice fighter Martyn Namorong.

The order was granted by justice Collin Mikail in response to an urgent application by Gamato’s lawyer.

It sought to ban what were termed “defamatory remarks” about Gamato by Namorong.

It was reported the case arose “from alleged defamatory remarks the blogger made on social media associating commissioner Gamato to a fruit.”

That is, a tomato.

Namarong was not present for the hearing because court officials apparently could not locate the well-known public figure to serve documents.

Namorong responded by using social media to publish an image of himself gagged (pictured, with applause from his family).

And on Twitter, Namorong said: “Just heard I am being taken to court. I need a pro bono lawyer.”

To which PNG Attitude has offered to launch a public appeal to establish a fund to defend Namorong if the matter is pursued in court. Stand by, stout souls, on this one.

Mikail ruled the case must come before the court again on Monday 25 July, set to be known locally in some parts of the South Pacific as ‘International Tomato Day’.

PNGi has released Part 3 of The Midas Touch, an in-depth report into Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s business empire and how its development has been interwoven with his political career.

Lift Off: Prime Minister, Millionaire reveals O’Neill’s private business interests have included oil and gas industry support services, construction, airlines, insurance, finance and banking, consumer lending, information technology, funeral services, hospitality and gambling, travel and tourism, and consultancy services.

It also shows how, as Peter O’Neill’s political career reached its crowning peak in 2011, his business empire underwent an astonishing period of growth.

At its height, this empire commanded assets worth in excess of K250 million, although even this figure doesn’t account for any corporate holdings held on trust for O’Neill or held through other proxy shareholdings.

There is nothing necessarily sinister in a business empire, but in a national economy where the state is a major investor and consumer, having a Prime Minister personally possessing significant stakes in key markets, generates fertile ground for conflicts of interest.

Avoiding conflicts of interest is a demand enshrined in the Constitution, Section 27 states a leader must not ‘ place himself in a position in which he has or could have a conflict of interests’ and ‘shall not use his office for personal gain’ or ‘enter into any transaction or engage in any enterprise or activity that might give rise to doubt in the public mind’.

To test how Peter O’Neill matches up to these standards, PNGi has mapped his business empire, through a convoluted web of companies in which he has an explicit stake. In doing so, PNGi has uncovered evidence that O’Neill’s businesses have directly benefited from government contracts and contracts awarded or funded by international financial institutions and foreign governments.

Key findings include:

• O’Neill’s business Wild Cat Developments, which he has recently sold, was one of the first to benefit from the construction of the controversial new Western Pacific University, in the Prime Minister’s Pangia-Ialibu electorate.
• Wild Cat has also earned significant multi million kina revenues from Asian Development Bank funded projects.
• O’Neill used the Prime Minister’s office to patronise a joint-venture he shares with Sir Luciano and Lady Ni Yumei Cragnolini, without seemingly revealing his beneficial interest.
• Remington Technology, another company in which the Prime Minister has a substantial stake, has benefited from contracts with state entities, government departments, and Australian government agencies.

Lift Off: Prime Minister, Millionaire also reveals O’Neill owned entities have consistently breached important reporting requirements set out in the Company Act 1997.

These findings raise a series of important technical questions:

• Has Peter O’Neill declared all his interests to the Ombudsman Commission and sought special dispensation for his voluminous range of business interests?
• Did he recuse himself from any National Executive Council (NEC) decision, which his companies would benefit from, directly or indirectly?
• Have the contracts complied with the governance protocols of the relevant International Financial Institutions and foreign government agencies?

The findings also raise some ethical issues:

• Is it right for senior political figures to retain large business holdings?
• Should a Prime Minister be able to personally profit from decisions made by his government, even where he has recused himself from the decision making process, and declared his assets to the Ombudsman Commission?

PNGi says The Midas Touch is based on months of digitally assisted analysis of several thousand corporate records, hundreds of official documents and media reporting. It comprises three parts:

1. The Secret Millionaire: Inside the O’Neill Empire
2. The Big Skim: Peter O’Neill Inc meets Don Sawong and Tos Barnett
3. Lift Off: Prime Minister, Millionaire

Source: ACT NOW!

Community advocacy group ACT NOW! has launched a petition calling on newly elected MPs to establish an Independent Commission Against Corruption within 100 days.

“Everyone knows corruption is a massive problem in Papua New Guinea”, says Campaign Coordinator, Eddie Tanago. “People are dying unnecessarily every day because of the rampant stealing and the mismanagement it causes.”

ACT NOW! says well resourced, permanent and politically independent, Commission Against Corruption [ICAC] is desperately needed.

“This new petition is urging our newly elected MPs to take responsibility and do something effective by immediately establishing an ICAC,” says Mr Tanago.

ACT NOW! says the 100 day timetable is achievable as all the legislation needed for an ICAC has already been drafted and the necessary Constitutional amendment was passed by Parliament in 2016.

It has been estimated as much as 50% of the government’s annual development budget is stolen every year¹ and police have said K1.5 billion went missing in 2016 alone.² PNG is ranked in the bottom 20% of all countries for corruption by Transparency International.3

“The consequences of this corruption are dire. Vital health and education services starved of money and mismanagement and abuse further impede service delivery. Then there are all the illegal land deals that keep happening and illegal logging”, says Mr Tanago.

“Existing anti-corruption mechanisms have proven to be ineffective and a new body with full powers of investigation and prosecution is urgently needed”.

“In 2012, the incoming government promised to establish an ICAC as a major step in the fight against corruption. But over the next five-years it failed to fulfil that promise. Our new MPs must ensure they do better”.

In February William Duma was suspended now he is back at the very heart of government

In February Prime Minister Peter O’Neill suspended Ministers William Duma and Fabian Pok and announced a Commission of Inquiry into their role in the Manumanu military base and land scandal.

That Commission of Inquiry has never happened, but in the meantime the revelations about Mr Duma and his connection to various corrupt land deals have only intensified, as these stories illustrate:

• William Duma’s hidden hand in K3 billion Paga Hill Development
• United Resources Party at the centre of Manumanu land scandal: former and current leader implicated
• Duma Scandal Thickens – The Fox is in the Henhouse
• The Duma Scandal Deepens – New Links and New Land Grabs

But now, in one of his first acts as Prime Minister since the controversial elections, Peter O’Neill has reappointed Duma a Minister in his caretaker Cabinet. The Mt Hagen MP and United Resources Party Leader, has his hands back on the Petroleum and Energy portfolio and will also handle Housing and Urbanisation, Public Enterprise and State Investments, Transport, Agriculture and Livestock!

Transparency International is outraged, as we all should be. TIPNG is calling on the Prime Minster to keep his promise to the people, and revoke the appointment of Duma.

In a statement, TIPNG says Peter O’Neill, is on public record as making a clear commitment to the people that the estimated K2m Administrative Inquiry will examine the details of the Manumanu land deal.

TIPNG says so far, Mr O’Neill has fallen short of his own standards with no publication of the findings of the inquiry, and now the reappointment of Mr. Duma with no consideration of his promise to the people.

It says Papua New Guineans expect leaders to be cleared of all alleged serious wrong-doings before they are entrusted to make decisions which will affect the people.

Leader of the Paga Hill seafront community Joe Moses, pictured in London, July 11, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Nicky Milne

Ruairi Casey for the Thomson Reuters Foundation

A land activist from Papua New Guinea at loggerheads with the police and developers in his home country has vowed to continue the fight for his community from Britain.

Joe Moses has accused PNG authorities of treating people unfairly in demolishing the Paga Hill seafront settlement in the capital Port Moresby to make way for a luxury hotel and apartments development and a ring road.

The government granted a lease to the Paga Hill Development Company (PHDC), a joint venture between local and international investors, to build on Paga Hill.

A Supreme Court ruling said the reclaimed seafront area was not included in the original lease but Moses said, unknown to the community, this land was leased by the state to developers during legal proceedings.

Moses, who features in a newly released documentary “The Opposition: Paga Hill“, said the settlement, dating back about 70 years, was home to about 2,000 people who had customary rights to the land and should have been allowed to stay.

“The whole community was a vibrant community,” Moses told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London where he is seeking asylum while his wife and children remain in Port Moresby.

“I just miss home every day, every minute of the day when I’m here.”

POLICE DENY INTIMIDATION

Moses, a former university worker, said his clash with authorities dated back to May 2012 when he led a fight in the courts to stop development.

In October that year, he said a policeman arrived at his home seeking his arrest without charge and shortly afterwards he went into hiding in an army barracks with his family.

He stayed in Port Moresby but his concerns for his safety grew in 2014 when armed police forced out the remaining residents from the Paga Hill settlement and their homes were bulldozed.

“I realized they were still after me,” said Moses. “I was not free to go to public places, public gatherings; all my communications were tapped.”

The police, however, accused Moses of discharging a gun, resisting arrest and causing civil unrest.

In a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a police spokesman denied allegations of intimidation and accused Moses of seeking fame from an international audience.

“There is no threat whatsoever on Joe Moses. He can come home anytime he wants to. There has been and will be no intimidation,” the spokesman said in an email.

Moses said with the assistance of international NGOs he was able to secure a flight from Papua New Guinea to Panama in November 2016 and then onto Britain.

“The most important thing is I need to get my family out … we need to be safe somewhere while waiting for the situation to change,” he said.

Moses said he hoped he will be able to return to Papua New Guinea someday to continue his fight to get fair compensation for his community, many of whom are still living in tents on a relocation site without suitable water and sewerage facilities.

A PHDC statement said the company was “proud of having achieved the first privately-funded squatter settlement relocation in PNG” with the site handed over in 2014.

“The fact that the relocation site was officially handed over almost three years ago, as well as that many settlers have since on-sold and moved on, PHDC can in no way be reasonably held accountable for the current state of the relocation site, or for those that PHDC relocated,” PHDC’s statement said.

Moses, however, vowed to press on with his campaign.

“I know that I will face consequences, but someone has to do something … If it means life and death I will have to do this – because someone has to do something to help the people,” he said.

Chih-hao Chang, Hung Chin Ng and Sie Miew Tiong are the owners of Achim Agro Limited, a company accused by locals of illegally logging in East Sepik Province – see story below. The reports of SGS, the company that is supposed to monitor all log exports from PNG, contain no record of Achim Agro Limited.

Chang, who is Chinese, Ng and Tiong, who are Malaysian, are also the owners of two other PNG registered companies, Grace Foremost Limited and Wewak Cocoa Limited. All three companies were registered in 2016.

via Facebook

There is a Chinese Timber company “ACHIM ECO FORESTRY COMPANY” who has destroyed Turubu and has shifted their operations to Kauk in West Coast Dagua in East Sepik. They have destroyed and stolen a great deal of timber without paying the landowners and are now looking at grabbing our land by conning some of my relatives and KAIKAI man from SMAIN and BUT villages.

ACHIM have paid them lousy thousands of Kina to go in and harvest the timber. We have taken out a preventative order to stop them and we will be in court with them next week.

Governor Allan Bird, Kevin Isifu & Richard Maru, we need your help in removing this illegal company, grabbing land from ignorant land owners and making false promises to them.

Papua New Guinea’s new investigative website, PNGi Central, has published an in-depth examination of the career of Peter O’Neill that has largely escaped notice in the chaos of the elections.

Published in three parts – Secret Millionaire; The Big Skim; and Lift Off – The Midas Touch lifts the lid on how corruption thrives in Papua New Guinea and how politicians abuse their positions and milk the system to build considerable private fortunes.

The Midas Touch shows Papua New Guinea as a classic kleptocratic state ruled by a small elite or oligarchy, who exploit the nations natural resources and steal. They enrich themselves at the expense of the majority. This kleptocracy is currently led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

Over the last twenty-years, O’Neill has abused his various political positions to enrich himself by building a network of companies that have benefited from government and foreign aid contracts, soft loans and broader policy decisions.

While in public office it is estimated that O’Neill has amassed a personal fortune of well over K150 million, all the while juggling complex conflicts of interest as his companies have benefited from government policy and spending decisions.

In addition:

• O’Neill liquidated assets valued at more than K100 million in the lead up to this year’s national  elections;
• His hidden corporate interests include shareholdings in more than 30 companies including hospitality, real estate, finance, retailing, air transport, communications, information technology, mining support, funeral services and construction;
• His companies have been given contracts by the Australian government and Asian Development Bank, among others, and are frequently used by the mining and other foreign-owned industries;
• He has directly benefited from fraudulent land and property dealings documented in two Commission’s of Inquiry; and
• O’Neil has completely failed to comply with companies legislation on the timely, proper and complete filing of financial returns.

According to The Midas Touch, the story of O’Neill’s business empire starts in 1997, when O’Neill was plucked from obscurity and appointed to positions in various State Owned Enterprises by the notoriously corrupt Prime Minister, William Skate. O’Neill immediately started to use these positions to enrich himself and his his business partners.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though, O’Neill flirted with disaster when many of his early scams became the subject of two major Commission’s of Inquiry into the National Provident Fund and Investment Corporation. O’Neill survived however, and used his election as an MP and subsequent appointment to various Ministerial positions to substantially grow his business empire, an empire that has flourished since O’Neill seized the Prime Ministership in 2011.

Along this journey, O’Neill has surrounded himself with a small group of close associates, many of them Australian’s, who run his companies and with a coterie of businessmen and lawyers who have profited from his abuses and protected him from scrutiny.

Here is a quick summary of what you will find in the three parts of The Midas Touch.

Part 1. Secret Millionaire: How Peter O’Neill and associates have made a killing 

In the space of 20 years, Peter O’Neill has built a business and political empire. Secret Millionaire introduces us to the businesses and the players behind O’Neill’s rise and his early years as a student, accountant and struggling businessman before his big break when he is appointed head of various SOEs.

Part Two. The Big Skim: Peter O’Neill Inc meets Don Sawong and Tos Barnett

In 2003 and 2007 the O’Neill empire was rocked by two COIs. Part II of The Midas Touch looks into the unwieldy scams, and shams, it is alleged Peter O’Neill became an expert in.

Part Three. Lift Off: Prime Minister, Millionaire

As O’Neill’s political career went from strength to strength after 2011, so did his business empire. Part III of The Midas Touch looks into some of the more controversial deals and contacts that led O’Neill to become one of the richest men in PNG.

PNGi has released the first instalment of a three-part investigation into the abusive commercial transactions that are leading to the circulation of overpriced and substandard medicines and medical supplies and the waste of millions of Kina in desperately needed funding.

Life expectancy in PNG is twenty years lower than in Australia and the lowest in the region. Eight million people in Papua New Guinea live without access to decent health care and everyone feels the impacts.

If ever there was a sector which should be safeguarded by political leaders to ensure that services are provided in an effective and efficient manner, free from malfeasance, it is public health, but as the the PNGi investigation reveals, that is far from reality.

Profiting from Sickness focuses on controversial medical goods supplier, Borneo Pacific Pharmaceuticals Limited, its principal, Sir Sang Chung Poh, and a network of business people, former public servants and doctors, connected to him.

Part I of Profiting from Sickness puts the spotlight on Borneo Pacific Pharmaceuticals Limited itself.

It reveals allegations made against Borneo Pacific from a range of credible authorities, including the Medical Association of PNG, The Global Fund’s Inspector General, a Special Parliamentary Committee, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Solicitor General’s Office, the National Doctor’s Association, front-line medical workers, Professor Glen Mola, Governor Gary Juffa, and Sir Mekere Morauta.

The general pattern common to all these allegations, is that Borneo Pacific benefits from rigged or flawed tender processes, which come at a significant cost to donors and the public. Furthermore, the goods being provided through these flawed tenders, it is claimed, have been found wanting.

All of which, it is argued, result in Borneo Pacific make engorged profits at the public’s financial and physical expense.

The consequences of this alleged abusive behaviour could not be more serious. Rather than the public health system eroding health inequalities, it is exacerbating them and missing the opportunity to make inroads into primary health care that could make a significant impact on the quality and quantity of life enjoyed by ordinary citizens. This comes at an enormous cost to family life and the national economy.

Part II of Profiting from Sickness, to be published next week, will turn the spotlight on some of Sir Sang Chung Poh’s business partners. These include some of the country’s top physicians; some of who have been investigated for abuse of position in the health system, with extremely worrying results.

Part III will look at Poh’s wider business interests, which extend into many sectors of the economy and provide some interesting connections, even reaching as far as the Prime Minister himself.

Still many questions unanswered about how demonetized Kina came to leave PNG and is now in Korean hands in the Philippines…

Source: Rey Galupo \ The Philippine Star 

The Korean tried to exchange 50,000 kina, the demonetized Papua New Guinea currency, into pesos when he was arrested.

A Korean man was arrested and charged with estafa after he exchanged P160,000 worth of a demonetized currency in Binondo, Manila on Wednesday. 

Kim Jae Song went to the moneychanger stall of businessman Johnny Hao, 71, at the basement of 999 Mall at around 11 a.m. and had his 10,000 kina (Papua New Guinea currency) changed into pesos, which is equivalent to P160,120.87.

Kim introduced himself as Rey Lee during the transaction and hurriedly left.

However, Hao’s nephew, Bryon Pedelos, later learned that the Papua New Guinea currency that the suspect swapped was no longer accepted as legal tender after he tried to sell it to other moneychangers.

They learned that the currency had been demonetized in 2013.

Two hours later, Kim went back to Hao’s shop and was trying to exchange his 50,000 kina to pesos.

The shop’s security guards apprehended the suspect and turned him over to the police.

During investigation, Kim failed to explain where he kept the money he initially swapped, according to Chief Inspector Joey de Ocampo, Manila Police District general assignment and investigation chief.

He refused to answer questions, forcing the police to coordinate with the Korean embassy, which said Kim is considered an undesirable alien and had been staying in the country without proper papers.

De Ocampo said they are also asking the Bureau of Immigration to help determine when Kim entered the country.

Collingwood Bay. Photo Eric Wakker RAN

Industry observer: “This is a complete nonsense… a cocoa project simply doesn’t need a massive hectarage, involving massive forestry clearance and equipment… It’s clearly another completely fraudulent exercise, made easier by the lack of penalties imposed upon the existing SABL perpetrators”

By Lester Seri

The National Forest Authority has granted permission for logging in the Collingwood Bay area of Northern Province despite the strong opposition of local people.

This is the third attempt at large-scale commercial logging in the area, the two previous attempts having been successfully defeated through the courts.

It is understood Northern Forest Products Ltd and Aisor Development Corporation have been issued a Forest Clearance Authority (FCA) to log Portions 136, 137 and up to Baruga lands  and to the Musa river.

According to the maps seen, its seems the entire Collingwood Bay area is to be consumed by logging under the pretext of planting cocoa.

Local people have been given no information about the proposed logging and have not seen a copy of the FCA proposal, or any approval granted by the National Forest Board or the Forest Minister.

Requests to the Forest Authority for these documents have gone unanswered and local people are totally in the dark as to how the authorities could give approval with even consulting local people and without ensuring their consent.

Meanwhile a company (allegedly involving a Malaysian and some Wanigela landowners) has been landing logging equipment at  Wanigela since April this year. The equipment is being stored at Naukwat village, a home to one of the people known to have been directly involved in the illegal Collingwood Bay SABL that was declared illegal by the National Court in June 2014.

Collingwood Bay landowners are at a loss to understand the continuing defiance by the National Forest Authority to grant licences for logging concessions in their area despite court rulings after court ruling in favour of the landowners that span nearly 30 years.

There are rumours that the Provincial Government and the Administration are in support of a cocoa project in Collingwood Bay, and it is alleged that the new FCA and movement of logging machineries have their approval?

Questions asked are:

1. Why have the landowners not been officially made aware of this government sanctioned cocoa project?
2. Why does the cocoa planting require bulldozers, jinkers and graders, when the landowners need only knives, spades and axes to plant cocoa.

The Baruga landowners have already put up tabu markings stopping anybody moving into their private land.

The National Forest Authority has miserably failed many landowning communities’ in Papua New Guinea over the years and continues to do so in Collingwood Bay through the illegal SABL and now this suspect FCA.

The Collingwood Bay people have held community consultation forums since 2014 and have unanimously agreed to pursuing their own Community Conservation Initiative. This received final community approval in April 2017, and funding support has been secured.

It seems the National Forest Authority is intent on deliberately truncating / DESTROYING the Communities’ Conservation Initiative over 650,000 hectares of land by encouraging logging without the consent of the local people.

I AM OF THE STRONG VIEW THAT IT IS TIME FOR THE ENTIRE COLLINGWOOD BAY COMMUNITIES’ TO CONVERGE AT WANIGELA AND DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FROM THOSE CONCERNED, THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT AND THE ADMINISTRATION, AND THE RESPECTIVE FORESTRY OFFICES IN PORT MORESBY AND POPONDETTA.

Inspection of Ifane Agro Forestry Project

Update by Gary Juffa via FaceBook

As usual as has been the case with such dubious projects done without the approval of my Office and the Provincial Executive Committee.

This is the other Forestry scam besides SABL: FCA – FOREST CLEARING AUTHORITY.

Here public servants in provinces corroborate with PNGFA officials and dubious “landowners” to award permits via the PNGFA BOARD to log chunks of land of 500 hectares to logging pirates on the pretext of “tree growing” and “agricultural projects”.

Thing is.. these are the same plunderers who pay no taxes and have planted no trees or a single agricultural species of plant or animal life for the last 20 – 30 years…

My inspection in reaction to landowner petitions revealed massive breaches of various laws including environmental, trespassing, labour, transport, migration and others.

I took Administration officials who confessed giving approvals without bringing to my attention first. The officials were showed the various areas of concern that the company blatantly logged in breach of various laws and instructed to act immediately and impose penalties.

Interviewed some of the landowners who all admitted they are “partners”.. but have not been paid.. despite truckloads of high value logs leaving their land.

Meanwhile a dispute remains as to who are actual landowners.

Instructed PNGFA and Administration to immediately furnish documents for the so called project, instruct company to cease operations until they pay fines for all breaches and we have investigated their legality of operations, inform all clans to congregate end of November to deliberate on damages and trespassing and compile case to sue for damages.

See also – Yet another unlawful attempt to log Collingwood Bay

Peter O’Neill’s cash strapped government is moving it Conservation and Environment Protection Authority into plush new office accommodation in one of Port Moresby’s premier real estate developments.

The Savannah Heights complex on Waigani Drive is the new home for both CEPA and its sister organisation, the Climate Change Development Authority.

The two organisations will occupy the whole eight floors in one Savannah Heights tower; quite a step up from CEPA’s old accommodation in the B-Mobile building further down Waigani Drive.

The new accommodation costs are clouded in secrecy, but it is believed the government is paying at least K1,200 per square metre per month. With CEPA and CCDA spread over eight luxurious floors that could mean a bill of around K2 million a month or K24 million a year.

Other estimates have put the costs as high as K3.5 million a month or K42 million each year.

CEPA staff are rather bewildered by the move as CEPA relies on generous grants from aid donors like the United Nations and Japanese and Australian governments to maintain many of its functions.

Inside the new CEPA / CCDA building

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has been vocal in the media recently telling anti-corruption warriors to be patient and wait for the results of an administrative inquiry into the alleged illegal Manumanu land deals – transactions involving millions of kina in state funds and hundreds of hectares of land.

See also:

• William Duma’s hidden hand in K3 billion Paga Hill Development
• United Resources Party at the centre of Manumanu land scandal: former and current leader implicated
• Duma Scandal Thickens – The Fox is in the Henhouse
• The Duma Scandal Deepens – New Links and New Land Grabs

But it has already been ten months since the scandal erupted in the media. It was early February when the Prime Minister promised three investigations, a Commission of Inquiry (later downgraded to an Administrative Inquiry) a police fraud squad investigation and an Ombudsman Commission inquiry.

Now the Prime Minister says the Administrative Inquiry is yet to complete its investigations and the results will be known in an ‘appropriate timeframe’ but given no clue as to what that means.

Meanwhile the people implicated in the scandal and their party are back at the heart of government and the police and Ombudsman Commission are completely silent.

Justice delayed is justice denied and we are all victims of government corruption; corruption that O’Neill is happy to see continue while he sits on his hands.

Lawyer Paul Paraka

See also:
The Paraka scams – K780 million stolen from the people
Top PNG lawyer Paul Paraka arrested over $28m

BY TONY SII, Post Courier

LAWYER Paul Paraka’s bid to stop criminal proceedings against him at the committal court has failed yesterday.

This was after magistrate Cosmas Bidar refused an application by Paraka’s lawyer seeking orders for the court to stay the committal court proceedings in relation to the much-publicised Paul Paraka saga pending hearing and determination of a related matter in the National Court.

The application filed under section 5, 9, and 22 of the District Court Act was described as a delay tactic in advancing the criminal case against Paraka and that the reasons put forward were not convincing Mr Bidar said, adding that section 22 of the Act was misconstrued.

“The application is basically using a civil process to stay criminal proceedings. The practice in my view is improper and it should not be allowed,” he said.

“Just because Paul Paraka, the principal accused in the allegations involving payment of Paul Paraka Lawyers’ legal bills by the Department of Finance, has a judicial review application before the National Court, which to date since filing of the application, no steps have been taken to diligently prosecute that application first of all for seeking leave and secondly the application proper.”

That high court application sought to review the committal court’s decision of April 27.

Mr Bidar said Paraka is facing distinct and separate criminal charges relating to the allegations and that this should proceed through the committal process.

“A committal process has ample and sufficient checks and balance system to protect the accused person’s rights.

“In any event, the committal process is transitory, non-conclusive and tentative process which should be allowed to take its course,” Mr Bidar said.

The matter returns to court on February 13 next year.

Meanwhile, the case on former finance secretary Steven Gibson in relation to the substantive matter was adjourned to February 28 for oral submissions on evidence.