Christian Life Centre obtained fraudulent land title from NHC

The Christian Life Centre in Enga Province has been forced by the courts to forfeit a land title that it fraudulently acquired from the notoriously corrupt National Housing Corporation. Pastor William Iki and the Christian Life Centre claimed they were the owners of a State Lease purchased from the NHC for a property in Wapenamanda, Enga Province, identified as Allotment...

UBS loan was an ‘unnecessary disaster’ for PNG and its people

The Commission of Inquiry into the UBS loan has finished but the Commission’s findings, contained in a fifteen volume report, have been locked away, at least for now. The Prime Minister has pledged the report will be presented to Parliament on 19 April and the findings made public after that. In the meantime, an assessment of the facts and the...

More logging industry abuses exposed, this time in New Ireland

UPDATE, 11 April 2022. Immigration officials have detained a further twenty-two foreign nationals for immigration offences following a raid on a logging camp in West Sepik. It is reported that two logging companies were found to be illegally operating in the Hawain area. The detained workers have been flown to Port Moresby for deportation. News that a state investigation team...

Prosecution Alleges Paraka Directed Expansive Laundromat

The state alleges that Paul Paraka presided over and benefited from a vast scheme that saw K162,860,194.96 defrauded from the public purse. While proceedings have been delayed by a litany of appeals lodged by the accused co-conspirators, the subsequent procedural judgements have provided insight into the prosecution’s case. In the first important window provided in the 2021 decision of Justice...

Latest 2021 log export data revealed

All the latest log export data from Papua New Guinea for 2021 is now available and can be viewed on the PNGi Forests website. The data contains details of log export volumes and log exporting concessions and can be cross referenced with details of logging company ownerships and a digital library of academic reports and court cases. Log volumes can...

Malaysia seizes shipment of logs from Papua New Guinea

The seizure of 700 tropical logs on two barges by authorities in Malaysia has raised once again serious questions about whether logs from Papua New Guinea are being illegally exported under the radar of customs and forestry officials. Persistent rumours of illegal shipments of PNG logs have been fuelled by the ability of logging companies to stay in business despite...

Provincial Accountant stole K1.3 million from the State

Research into corruption prosecutions in Papua New Guinea reveals that despite widespread misappropriation of public funds, only a tiny number of officials are ever charged with criminal offences and almost none end up being convicted or imprisoned. Time will tell if the case of Jonah Posa is a rare exception to the rule, or the start of a new trend...

Foul Play Alleged in Census 2021 Contract Award

Shortly before Christmas in 2020, as the world contended with COVID-19, the National Procurement Commission considered bids to supply materials for the 2021 Census effort. Wakale Stationery & Logistics was awarded a K4.1 million contract to supply stationary for the 2021 Census, a K3.5 million contract was awarded to Printsol Limited for the provision of field gear, while MH Supplies...

Policemen Jailed for Preventing Prime Minister O’Neill’s Arrest

Three career police officers are currently languishing in Bomana prison, locked up by the courts for the role they played in protecting the then Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, from arrest in 2014 over allegations he personally authorised the payment of K71 million by the State to Paraka lawyers. While ultimately O’Neill successfully dodged the Paraka scandal by disbanding his own...

Chief Justice slams police over failure to investigate former NHC boss John Dege

After being appointed Housing Minister in 2019, Justin Tkatchenko described the NHC as a ‘failed entity’, and denounced the institution’s rot and corruption. All the evidence collated to date indicates one former Managing Director in particular deserves special condemnation. John Dege served as the NHC’s head from 2012 until 2016 (for previous PNGi reports on Dege click here), a tenure...

Corporate Regulator Again Fails to Detect Illegal Share Transfer

Various laws govern the conduct of limited liability companies in Papua New Guinea, such as, the Companies Act 1997. But if those laws are not enforced the corporate world is, in effect, free to operate in an anarchic environment. Without enforcement and oversight, directors and shareholders can do what they want without fear of consequence. Partners can easily defraud partners....

Red flagged company wins new Duran Farm contract

A company owned by an ex-politician, and which is alleged to be at the centre of a K24 million Duran Farm fraud, has been awarded a new contract for the government’s showpiece housing development. The new contract to build up to 505 houses, awarded to PNG Resources Corporation Limited trading as Kwik Build PNG, again places doubt over Housing Minister...

Delayed law change allows alleged Aussie drug lord to avoid significant jail time

Papua New Guinea has finally criminalised the trafficking, possession and manufacture of hard drugs with the passage of the Controlled Substances bill through Parliament. Those convicted under the new law could face life imprisonment or a K2 million fine. Fortunately, for one alleged Australian drug lord, the new law has come too late to put him behind bars for life....

Chinese Smuggling Ring Conspired with Customs and PNGDF Officers to Defraud the State

International parasites have gutted Health Dept says police chief

Papua New Guinea’s COVID response has been undermined by ‘a cabal of multilateral agencies and international non-government organisations’, according to the country’s Police Commissioner and COVID Response Controller. Commissioner David Manning claims these international agencies have hollowed out Papua New Guinea’s Department of Health (NDOH) and intercepted donor funding for their own ends. These actions, he says, have compounded the...

Hidden Valley landowners scavenge for law and order funding

Since Independence in 1975, Papua New Guinea has relied on large-scale natural resource extraction to deliver its development aspirations. It is a model that the Nation’s founding fathers warned would not work and the history of the last forty-five years has proved them right. While vast quantities of oil, gas, gold, silver, copper and tropical logs have been ripped from...

UBS Bank, a global serial offender, overcharged PNG A$175 million report claims

UBS Bank has gained notoriety in Papua New Guinea for its prominent role in the government’s disastrous 2014 purchase of Oil Search shares which has ended up costing ordinary taxpayers more than K1 billion in total. In the most recent evidence submitted to the ongoing Commission of Inquiry it has been alleged that UBS extracted as much as A$175 million...

Health leak reveals how major corruption investigations stall

Corruption in Papua New Guinea is, as the late Prime Minister Mekere Morauta famously invoked, both systemic and systematic. Despite the widespread and corrosive nature of the problem, there are still some honest public officials trying to stem the tide by investigating and prosecuting those who unjustly enrich themselves. It is an uphill struggle. At every turn those who want...

The ANZ Bank Statement at the Centre of PNG’s Largest Misappropriation Case

The Special Police Forensic Criminal Investigation Team announced earlier this year it had uncovered a staggering K268 million theft. According to a July media release issued by the special RPNGC unit, the money has been taken from the Western Province People’s Dividends Community Mine Continuation Agreement Trust Fund. The alleged offenders include a number of managers, directors and lawyers working...

Death toll climbs yet again as Health Dept reforms fall flat

The number of unnecessary deaths caused by drug shortages in hospitals and clinics continues to climb right across Papua New Guinea as rampant corruption and mismanagement in the Health Department remains unchecked. This is despite a landmark Public Accounts Committee investigation in 2019 that promised fundamental reform of the drug procurement and distribution system. Yet despite the fanfare no substantive...

Companies Registrar and Securities Commission Acting Director imprisoned for forgery

August saw former Registrar of Companies, Alex Tongayu, receive a three-year sentence, including two years in prison, for forgery. At the heart of the case in the National Court was Justice Berrigan’s finding that Tongayu forged the signature of the then Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry, Richard Maru on two documents that appointed him Registrar of Companies and Acting...

Yama fails in latest bid to quash criminal charges

It is a familiar story, one that PNGi has reported on numerous times before. The nation’s elite politicians and businessmen using their wealth and position to mount numerous legal challenges to delay criminal charges or civil sanction. Peter O’Neill, Paul Paraka, Patrick Pruaitch and many more are all adept at manipulating the system to retain their positions of power, and...

‘So where is the scandal’, NCD Governor asks. PNGi replies.

NCD Governor Powes Parkop has issued a fiery response on Facebook, to a PNGi report published last week. The PNGi piece drilled into a recent National Court judgement delivered by Justice Shepherd. The judgement centres on a statement of claim made by Bani Investment Limited against the NCDC. Bani Investment alleges it was awarded two road contracts by the NCDC,...

Court Ruling Places Governor Parkop at the Centre of NCDC Scandal

In 2012 rubber trader Onne Bani made tentative steps into the world of civil construction. Even by his lawyer’s own account Bani was inexperienced. Nevertheless, in 2013 NCD Governor Powes Parkop and his Project Coordinator attempted to grant Bani’s newly established company two road construction contracts valued at over K12 million. Public tender requirements were ignored. The experienced lawyer Governor...