Israel’s Shadowy LR Group Graduates From Growing Veggies To Buying PNG Power Corporation. Anyone Smell a Rotten Egg?
It defies simple logic how an Israeli company so small and invisible in its own country could be creating everything from A to Z here in PNG, with its eye on running the national power grid and holding us hostage to pay whatever price they demand for electricity.
Israeli’s LR Group is back in the news again. Sometime in 2011 our shady Prime Minister found LR Group to be the perfect partner for PNG, even though its track record at setting up any project that sustains itself without their permanent and profitable involvement is questionable and they seem very secretive, even to their employees on what they’re really up to (see http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/06/png-israeli-business-connections.html).
Late last year, shady Peter had LR Group do a simple middleman business deal, sourcing 2 generators for PNG that initially were said to be coming from Israel’s Israel Electric Corp (IEC) as used equipment, but then strangely arrived from the USA from General Electric, which is likely the manufacturer. That switcheroo was never fully explained. Of course we’re assuming we can believe either The National the Post Courier when they report these things.
Why would the PNG government even need a middleman company for such a thing? Governments never need middlemen, we all know! They have giant purchasing power. They buy straight from the source for the best price!
On the other hand, middlemen deals are the perfect setup if the idea is to start a corruption kickback collaboration. Not to worry, our shady Prime Minister said that eveything is above board and all we need to do is put our trust in him to do the right thing. Ahhhhh yaaaaa Paulparakayaaaaaaaaa!!!
Close on the heels of buying and reselling big generators, LR Group then became the international experts in Agriculture for PNG, picked by Peter to resurrect the old Ilimo farms for vegetable growing. Are we to believe the LR Group, based in a desert country, is suddenly THE expert to grow food on the very wet tropical lands where world agriculture was virtually invented (ever heard of 10,000 year old evidence of agriculture discovered near the Hagen airport)? Oops, we forgot. LR Group can build and do anything . They are world miracle workers, especially when the request for their help comes from developing countries run by shadowy leaders.
What they don’t seem to be able to build is the first major project they proposed for PNG. It was in The National on 15 September 2011 that LR Group announced a “major industrial complex to cater for animal husbandry, crop farming, training, storage and marketing” that thy would be developing, starting in SHP.
It’s 3 years later. Where is this major industrial complex?
Let’s forget about that one and focus only on projects that are promised rather than those that are never delivered. The latest boggles the mind. This past week, LR Group was back in the news again, now being introduced to the people of PNG as THE experts in Hydro project engineering. In fact, they’re ready to create a hydro scheme that will provide all the needs of SHP! SHP? Fancy that!
The two PNG pollies who rushed forward to share this announcement with LR Group chairman and director Ilan Weiss were (is this any surprise?) SHP Governor Anderson Agiru (commonly known as ‘Gamblin’ Andy’ at the Reef Casino in Cairns) and Tari Pori MP James Marape (whose personal sticky dipping into Hela funds was documented several years ago through a list of cheques drawn from public accounts that was published on PNG Blogs).
While we know this is of no interest to the hard working reporters of the Post Courier and the National, may we ask the following:
Who’s going to own this hydro facility?
Who’s going to operate it once it’s completed?
What equity and profit-sharing will the landowners have in this operation on the Gari River that promises to produce dirt cheap power for the people of the highlands?
Where are the economics in building what is stated to be an AUD $510 million project that supposedly will generate power for a fraction of the price that the current PNG Power charges. How does cheap power pay back such an outrageously expensive investment?
One last question. Why is NONE of this project funded with money coming into the government and properly budgeted? None of the cost of building this white elephant is coming from LNG revenue. Instead, it’s all being paid for with borrowed money, payable with interest. Of course! That’s Peter O’Neill’s speciality. It’s called living beyond one’s means.
This deal sounds as smelly as the people involved and let’s make sure we don’t leave Ben Micah out of the stinkpot. Ben is as bad as Peter in never admitting fault for anything. As the fingers are moving towards him, fat Micah is frantically trying to shift the blame to Peter O’Neill’s yessah yessah Port Moresby fan club aka NEC, for making this crazy decision to sell PNG Power. Sell PNG Power? Sell it to who?
To the shadowy LR Group, of course! This has been known for months: see http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/05/lr-groups-plans-to-take-over-png-power.html_
Looks like there’s going to be a very big cake for our extraordinarily fat Micah to stuff his face with the moment money trades hands. If there’s one thing we all need to know about Ben, it’s that he loves the high life and the high life costs truckloads of kina. Much more than he could possibly pay for off the salary we taxpayers give him to work full time for the people.
James Marape also needs something to keep his balloon belly full, now what will it be this time? Surprise, surprise, it’s a free around the world trip for James! He’s going to be traveling to New York, London and Tel Aviv over several weeks in October and November for a fun fun fun road show. Are the wantoks also invited, James, and by the way: who’s going to pay for that big sandwich?
We don’t know yet what’s in it for Anderson or for O’Neill, but undoubtedly there will be more than enough freebies and payouts to make everyone happy and send Gamblin’ Andy back to the casino to contribute to the Cairns economy.
There’s more yet. “LR Group Chairman and Director” (that’s what The National tells us) Ilan Weiss, who made the big announcement of the hydro scheme, is not THE director for LR Group. Instead, he is one of many directors, and his area of specialty, is it electrical engineering? Civil engineering? Hydrology?
Nope! Ilan’s specialty is agriculture! This is the same Ilan Weiss who was announced the major agricultural industrial complex in 2011!
Does this story get any stranger? Of course it does as more oddities and ugliness come into the picture. For example, what’s this story about “fuel shortage” for PNG Power that PNG Power Chairman John Tangit was warning about? Why would PNG Power suddenly be having shortages of fuel that they weren’t able to plan ahead for, especially noting that PNG is an exporting nation with a refinery that can produce all the fuel PNG Power needs? Tangit said the problem was pricing and delivery. Why would there be a price change all of a sudden? Oh no! Could we be talking about………..PUMA……. the new owner of the oil refinery and distributor of its products, who bought the used refinery that was purchased and shipped to PNG by InterOil for a whopping US $525.6 million?
Puma is the boss now with distributions of PNG oil and no one in government has yet leaked whether Puma also got the sweet deal that InterOil enjoyed for more than 13 years (with another 17 to go) of being able to charge every man, woman, and child in PNG a price for kerosene and diesel after adding a “fake transportation charge” as if the crude oil had come from Singapore. Is Puma not getting that same deal in selling fuel to PNG Power or are they greedy for more? For more about the shady Puma Energy, see http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/09/who-is-puma-energy-international.html).
No wonder PNG Power’s employees are cross. They can see for themselves that there’s a huge amount of suspicious activity regarding PNG Power that is going on behind the scenes. Their jobs and livelihoods are at stake but sweet backroom deals are taking precedence over any concern fo them. And as always, the PNG government is making clear by its actions that nothing it says is to be believed and that all of us who just want reliable, reasonably priced power are absolutely last in line.
And so the story goes, la la la la la. But remember this: Every time the power goes out over the coming weeks or months, please don’t blame the PNG Power workers. Blame O’Neill, Micah, Agiru and Marape, all of who are in cahoots with LR Group to bring us the world’s most expensive electricity. Point your fingers at them and demand oh so many explanations regarding the unfolding story of PNG Power.
