Why So Many Expensive One Page Newspaper Advertisements By the National Gaming Control Board On “Illegal Hi/Low Lottery”?


The amount of money being spent by the National Gaming Control Board on full page advertisements in our two dailies that announce a ban on hi/low lotteries is becoming more conspicuous with every passing week. Why is the Gaming Control Board so concerned with this?



Not surprisingly, It has to do with Prime Minister Peter O’Steal, who along with his cronies, is worried about his pokies machine empire is being threatened. Yes, this is the same Prime Minister who was telling all the churches only a few years ago that gambling was bad for the people and that he planned to control gambling. Why? Because behind the scenes O’Steal was buying up the pokies parlours in PNG and trying to get a monopoly on the business, which of course would earn him millions. Everyone knows that O’Steal’s pub, known as Paddy’s Bar in Boroko, has pokies. So much for O’Steal’s pious speeches to the pastors. But O’Steal was looking for more than a few pokies in his bar. He wanted as close a pokies monopoly as he would get.

Let’s start out with the fact that last year Prime Minister O’Steal appointed himself minister for gaming and gave himself powers to oversee the Gaming control Act 2007. That blatent conflict of interest has been allowed to stand. He didn’t do this in secret, he made an announcement on the floor of parliament. The obvious reason was to protect his personal pokies ownership.

What pokies does O’Steal own? It’s hard to find out because one of O’Steal’s favourite techniques has been to find front men and women to own his businesses. The idea is to make it look like he doesn’t own businesses that he does. This old trick has often used by Asians in PNG to put a PNG frontman in place and declare a business 100% PNG owned when actually it is 100% Asian owned with the frontman being paid a nice salary to do nothing but offer their name.

O’Steal does the same and there wouldn’t be so many stories about this related to so many different kinds of businesses if it was fabricated. Frankly, there are not the resources and money to figure out O’Steal’s tangled web of finances accurately and in detail and he knows it. That’s why it’s better to get out the stories as they stand rather than say nothing at all and let him get away with his crimes.

Once naming himself as Gaming Minister, O’Steal proceeded to cancel a number of gaming licenses under the pretence that he was helping further Christian objectives when actually he was helping O’Steal business objectives. His excuse was that the operators were not following procedures but following another O’Steal trick, he didn't give any details, he just cancelled the licenses. But Paddy’s Hotel and Apartments, it kept its pokie licence and why? Because Paddy’s is owned by the Prime Minister Peter O’Steal!

Once he appointed himself as minister, O’Steal then proceeded to appoint his cronies to the National Gaming Commission Board and its Community Benefits Fund. The fund gets at least K25 million every year from pokies proceeds. Guess where the money from this fund goes to? Priority goes to MPs! Yes indeed. Again, O’Steal keeps all this information under wraps, knowing that the average person in PNG will never find out and never question.

Who has O’Steal appointed to control the Community Benefits Fund? It is none other than Ni (Nee) Cragnolini, the Chinese wife of Port Moresby spivvy businessman Luciano Cragnolini and sometime mistress of the Prime Minister. Ni is well known for soliciting funds for PNC party whenever anyone wants her favours. Luciano is well known for getting contracts for his L&A Construction without ever having to go through the legal tendering process, thanks to Peter O’Neill.

The most famous example of L&A’s big money no tender work for the government is the renovation of the Pineapple Building. The building itself was completely sound and could have been upgraded in matter of months. But now the renovation, which should have cost the government K300,000, is costing well over K10 million, all in breach of the Public Finance Management Act and the Tenders Board laws.



Apart from being O’Steal’s sometime mistress and running the Gaming Board’s Community Benefits Fund, Ni is also on the Papua New Guinea Sports Foundation and connects to Justin Tkatchenko especially, now is the tangled web becoming clearer? Ni doesn’t give Justin sexual favours, he prefers other types, but helps out Justin in monetary ways.

To top it all off, Ni is also the Chairwoman of the PNG-Chinese Business Council in Port Moresby and played a major role in getting the humongous K6 billion Exxim Bank Chinese government loan for infrastructure development for PNG, about which there have been documentations of outrageously expensive road construction projects and the implied kickbacks that must be producing the excessive costs.

Luciano is in partnership with O’Steal over gaming licences, and one of the biggest pokies owners in the country. None of his licenses were cancelled.

Gregory James Melides who owns Laki Moni Haus in partnership with O’Steal and had a shady reputation with organised crime back in Australia, was O’Steal’s appointment to head the Gaming Commission Board. Along with Cragnolini and O’Steal, he is the biggest pokies owner in Port Moresby.

Most ironic is that the National Gaming Council Board has its own licence to manage pokies and this is where the threat was to the O’Steal-Cragnolini-Melides empire was, being that under this license, pokies could be sold to many other businesses to operate. Once O’Neill took over the board, he took over the gambling industry in PNG, along with partners Cragnolini and Melides.

None of the Peter O’Steal-Cragnolini-Melides PNG business mafia cares whether this story goes out. They are very confident that Peter O’Neill is doing his part to put everything in place to become a very long term leader of PNG. O’Steal always promotes stable government and now you know why. Stability to steal and grow the PNG O’Steal mafia.

In the meantime, O’Steal’s mafia is united in their effort to get rid of the hi-lo competition. That’s why you see all the advertisements.

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