THE TOKAUT BLOG
Have govt Ministers been lured into another expensive scam?
...K5 billion. All this leaves some very serious questions unanswered: What concessions have Prime Minister, James Marape, and Eastern Highlands Governor, Peter Numu promised? What guarantees have Jaekyeum Yu and Minho Hwang given to show they really have the funds available to finance their grandiose plans? How will investors be guaranteed a return from building infrastructure such as roads, clinics...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
COVID-19 Expenditure: Reporting the Red Flags
...unpaid debts at the time it was engaged by [Australia’s] Home Affairs [Department]’. Baker continues, ‘its directors include provincial government officials and retired PNG Supreme Court judge Don Sawong, who in 2017 unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s political party’. A leaked email acquired by Fairfax from a Bank South Pacific manager states ‘Australian Department of...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Stunning Claim Jimmy Maladina Administered K42m Extortion Scheme
...was handed to a Mr Peter Hawas at China Railway’s registered office. The National Court accepted China Railway’s evidence that they had no employee by the name of Peter Hawas. Justice Anis also noted there was ‘striking similarities’ between the hand writing of Flavalea Limited’s attorney, Kuira Lawyers, in the process service form, and the signature of Peter Hawas. In...
THE COURT REPORT
Compensation but no criminal charges for fraudulent lease
...Limited, i.e by Peter Dong Ho Kang. All three companies share the same auditor, Tengdui and Associates of Mt Hagen. The two directors of PNG Mega Energy Limited are Peter Dong Ho Kang and Boo Tae Kim. Further, PNG Mega Energy was only registered in 2015. That is three years after the fraudulent lease was obtained for the plot of...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Durand Farm: Dodgy Deals and Dashed Dreams
...Minister Peter O’Neill announced the project would be resurrected as a massive housing development for low and middle income earners, overseen by the National Housing Commission (NHC). Construction was initially handed over to a joint-venture led by a failed Australian builder, Kamran Samimi, and a Chinese company blacklisted by the World Bank. While that joint-venture failed to materialise, in 2015/2016...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Luxury Brisbane home adds new layer to Horizon Oil bribery scandal
...lived in the house while his two sons attended the nearby and exclusive St Peter’s Lutheran College. The Brisbane house was allegedly purchased in the name of Baccarat Investment Solutions, a company controlled by Darrell Seeto. Seeto is a former Macquarie Group private banker who, says the AFR, ‘was involved’ in the original Horizon Oil licence deal and who Mr...
THE COURT REPORT
Yama Bribery Scandal Takes Another Twist
Peter Yama is a businessman, serial litigator, and a political heavyweight, currently serving as Governor for Madang Province. Writing in The Australian, renowned PNG correspondent Rowan Callick describes Yama as the ‘policeman turned security godfather turned politician’ who appears ‘untouchable, capable of pulling strings in every quarter’. Callick writes colorfully about Yama’s past business exploits: Yama, thrives in the face...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Horizon Oil and William Duma Bribery Scandal
...that Mr Ketan and I are close and that we are politically connected’. PNGi has evidence which raises question’s over Mr Duma’s statement. In particular Simon Ketan has acted as the personal lawyer for William Duma. Image: Simon Ketan acts for William Duma in litigation against the estate of Peter Goodenough It is also worth noting the origins of Simon...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
How Don Polye helped swing the 2012 election for O’Neill
It was the year 2011. Papua New Guinea faced one of its worst constitutional crises. Two Prime Ministers faced off. On one side stood the Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare and on the other Peter O’Neill, each claiming the Prime Ministership as rightfully theirs. Both men have a history of corruption and illegal dealings documented in judicially led inquiries and...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Best of PNGi Central 2019: Your Most Read
...and had been implicated in a major illegal land deal and whose other beneficiaries had similarly questionable backgrounds. 5. The Midas Touch: How Peter O’Neill and his Associates have Made a Killing – Part 1 This investigative report into the career of Peter O’Neill was published back in June 2017, but it still featured high in the list of most...
THE COURT REPORT
Rimbunan Hijau abuses court system to deny landowners justice
...of the economy. Video: Then PM, Peter O’Neill, toasts RH at the opening of its 5-star Stanley Hotel. While Rimbunan Hijau can boast about its real estate and retail empire – its hotel, shopping mall, apartment blocks, and supermarket, its airline, travel company, national newspaper, printing and shipping businesses etc – the company and its lawyers are not adverse to...
THE COURT REPORT
ONeill, Paraka and a Senior Whistleblower
...criminal conspiracy between Paraka, Peter O’Neill, and a number of senior politicians. The details of his precarious situation as a whistleblower were set out in a Federal Circuit Court case in Australia. In the decision delivered by Judge Howard, careful consideration is paid to the threats faced by those who expose corruption in Papua New Guinea. The Court concluded there...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Is the net finally closing in on Isaac Lupari?
...he was sacked after just 12 months[1] and then had to fend off detailed allegations of fraud, Lupari later re-emerged as the right-hand man to Peter O’Neill. In February 2016 Prime Minister O’Neill promoted Lupari from Chief of Staff back to his old job as Chief Secretary, ‘the most important position in the public service’, according to the PM. But...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Konebada Petroleum Park Authority too corrupt to fall?
...much larger Portion 2693. Local landowners and their MP, Peter Isoaimo, are evidently unhappy with KPPA and its land deals. They have petitioned the government to abolish the Authority, accusing it of squandering funds and allowing the ‘illegal acquisition of large portions of land for unplanned and unregulated developments’. Lavish Spending and Shadow Budgets According to KPPA staff there are...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Prime Minister Marape Aided Indonesian Fugitive Joko Tjandra
...recognized by the Singapore Government thereby permitting him to reside there for four years? I believe we would be foolish not to welcome such large investment by Mr Tjandra. What is this formidable document written by Commodore (Retd) Peter Ilau, DMS CBE Ambassador to Indonesia, which would cause Rabura to ignore the Indonesian Supreme Court? Saying it was written on...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
KPPA and other stains on the new Marape government
New Prime Minister James Marape has loudly trumpeted his commitment to fight corruption and he has vowed an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will soon be established. But actions speak louder than words. After all, Peter O’Neill came to power making very similar promises. Indeed, the exact same commitment to establish an ICAC was the centrepiece of O’Neill’s rhetoric from...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
$13m Sydney Mansion Adds New Layers to UBS Loan Scandal
...Apartments’ is also the name of a small block of executive apartments over looking Port Moresby’s iconic Ela Beach. Is this apartment block the K10m asset owned by Theo Constantinou and Peter O’Neill through their eponymously named company? As well as registering Webb Street Apartments Limited, there were three other significant business transactions between Theo Constantinou and Peter O’Neill in...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Peter O’Neill blocked UBS investigation for three years
...Lets look at how O’Neill played this familiar game. It was on 23 February 2014 that then Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Oil Search Managing Director Peter Botten met and decided, ‘over a cup of coffee’ says the Ombudsman Commission, for the State to make its ill-advised purchase of a 10% stake in the oil company. Two-weeks later, the National...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
UBS, Oil Search and the Forgotten Middle Men – The Short Version
...injection of cash so it could buy a stake in the new Elk-Antelope LNG project. It was in this context that Oil Search CEO Peter Botten and PNG PM Peter O’Neill met at the Grand Papua Hotel in Port Moresby on 23 February, 2014. There, “over a cup of coffee” says the OC, the two men agreed the State should...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
UBS, Oil Search and the Forgotten Middle Men
...cash so it could buy a stake in the new Elk-Antelope LNG project being developed by French oil and gas giant, Total SA. It was in this context that Oil Search CEO Peter Botten and PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill met at the Grand Papua Hotel in Port Moresby on 23 February, 2014. There, “over a cup of coffee” says...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Are UBS and Oil Search Really Whiter than White?
...stop any take-over of the company it already had that power under the Takeovers Code’. This interpretation of events is not necessarily supported by the cozy tone of a letter sent to Oil Search CEO Peter Botten by then Prime Minister Peter O’Neill: “I am writing to you following our discussions in Port Moresby on 23 February 2014 regarding a...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
Peter ONeill: Son of a Grotesque Political System
Peter O’Neill faces arguably the biggest challenge to his Prime Ministership since 2011, as opposition numbers swell and a vote of no confidence looms. Whatever the outcome, it is easy to get swept up in the political rhetoric now proclaiming PM O’Neill is an aberration who has led the nation’s political system astray. And, so the argument goes, the opposition...
PNGi INVESTIGATES
Konebada Petroleum Park CEO Misappropriated K10m Leak Claims
...prosecute those accused of serious wrongdoing within KPPA. This mirrors the lamentable situation with KPPA’s predecessor KPPA Limited. Former civil servant Kila Ai, and Australian national, Peter Nicholls OBE, have enjoyed impunity for their actions, despite serious evidence of impropriety being documented in a Public Accounts Committee report tabled with parliament. narrative narrative narrative files narrative The Backdrop KPPA was...
THE TOKAUT BLOG
The Impunity Top 10
...If you feel that we have overlooked anyone, or that there are others that deserve a dishonourable mention email PNGi at: [email protected] Peter O’Neill: O’Neill faced unequivocal condemnation by the Commissions of Inquiry into NPF and Investment Corporation of PNG. O’Neill proclaims innocence. More recently, Asian Development Bank integrity investigators placed an O’Neill owned company at the centre of a...