ONeill Bridge Deal Hits Audit Iceberg

As foreign diplomats are about to get shuttled across Port Moresby in Bentleys and Maseratis, PNGi and The Guardian have published explosive new evidence detailing how the Prime Minister won the ‘Maserati’ of public tenders through his company Wild Cat Developments, in highly irregular circumstances.

The scandal centres on a K85 million bridge building contract for West New Britain funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

ADB auditors discovered [Annotated ADB Project Procurement Related Review Report] that proper tender processes were not followed and the selection process appears to have been rigged. In any event, Wild Cat never completed the contract, despite being paid generous instalments beyond what was justified by the work completed.

Below, PNGi presents, in three visual panels, the full story timeline blow by terrible blow. Now the cards are on the table, it remains to be seen whether anyone with a mandate  to investigate Peter O’Neill will have the courage to follow this through.

You can also read our three-part investigation into O’Neill’s business empire, published in 2017, where you can witness the many other state contracts won by O’Neill firms.

Note: Each panel below can be downloaded and shared as a single jpeg file or download the Full Timeline in pdf format.