The ONeill-ADB Scandal Unredacted

Wild Cat Developments Limited is at the centre of a scandal leading to the Prime Minister’s office. Now read the full report that links the firm to a rigged K80 million tender. 

Last week PNGi, in collaboration with The Guardian, exposed explosive details from an ADB Office of Anti-Corruption and Integrity inquiry. Now you can read the the full Asian Development Bank anti-corruption investigation, which has been specially un-redacted by PNGi investigators for the wider public.

This report produced by the Office of Anti-Corruption and Integrity discloses evidence that a company owned at the time by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Wild Cat Developments, won a massive tender (nearly K80 million), marked by forgery and fraud, all of which suggested the result had been rigged.

O’Neill claims in response he had a ‘brief interest in the company’ which was ‘due to a previous owner, an Australian citizen, being gravely ill and having to return to Australia’.

Sort of a charitable acquisition.

This contrasts notably with O’Neill’s remark to parliament in August 2014 where he said: ‘I have a shareholding in that company for many years’.

Later when it appeared O’Neill’s ‘I took the shares as a favour for a sick friend’ excuse was not washing, his office went on the attack in a predictably misguided fashion.

The PNGi-Guardian story was ‘fake news’, it was claimed.

The PM’s Office suggested the PNGi-Guardian investigation sort to undermine PNG’s attempt to stand as an equal among great nations at APEC: ‘It is disappointing that when a developing country such as Papua New Guinea accepts the challenge to host one of the most important forums in the world, people resort to fake news and sensationalism’.

The PM’s Office then laid down a challenge: ‘You cannot deny the facts. And the facts are what this journalist failed to provide’.

In the interests of presenting the facts, PNGi is providing the public with access to the full report produced by the ADB’s Office of Anti-Corruption and Integrity. The original anti-corruption report issued by  investigators was redacted, which meant the name of O’Neill’s company was removed. We have reinserted the name of the relevant companies and actors, so the public can make its mind up, ‘fake news’ or ‘corruption scandal’.