PNGBLOGS

Former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta today again rebutted the Prime Minister’s claims about PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd and his chairmanship. Sir Mekere referred to an article in the Post Courier of 27 April, which he said was a regurgitation of a media release put out a week ago on the PNC website. “I answered the false allegations he made in a media statement on 23 April; my statement was actually printed by the Post-Courier on 24 April. “Yet he and his media friends persist in repeating false claims.” Sir Mekere said that being an Independent candidate for the election does not make him an “active politician”. “I am like the other 4000-plus private citizens who are not Parliamentarians but are standing in the election,” he said. “Mr O’Neill forgets that PNGSDP is a company, and that I am not a public employee.” Sir Mekere said every claim made by the Prime Minister about PNGSDP and his role as chairman was false. The facts are: I have taken legal

MEDIA RELEASE The chairman of PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd, Sir Mekere Morauta, said today the company is willing to help provide debt finance to enable wellhead and facilities landowners buy equity in the PNG LNG Project. He said PNGSDP is happy to participate as the PNG-based member of a consortium of overseas financiers to provide a facility totaling K725 million (US$230 million) to allow the landowners to pay the State for their 4.27 per cent interest that was agreed under the Umbrella Benefit Sharing Agreement (UBSA) reached in 2009 between the Somare Government and the landowners. The wellhead and facilities landowners included in the equity holding cover groups within the PNG LNG project footprint from Western, Hela, Southern Highlands, Gulf and Central Provinces. PNGSDP was set up to hold shares in Ok Tedi Mining Ltd for the benefit of the people of Western Province and Papua New Guinea. Since the expropriation of its shares by the Government, it does not receive

Former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said reported attempts by the Prime Minister to secretly sell valuable public assets to foreign interests, if true, are a sign of his desperation for cash to save his sinking ship. “Ad hoc decision-making like this, not as part of a comprehensive package of rescue measures, will make the nation’s problems worse and reduce the options for properly considered reconstruction in the future.” “We are virtually in the caretaker government period, at which point no significant decisions should be made, especially decisions that rob shareholders and landowners of their rights and the general public of their assets.” Sir Mekere said he had been given reliable information on three asset sales that are allegedly being negotiated behind closed doors – of the State’s 67% share in Ok Tedi Mining Ltd, the State’s 20% share in the Star Mountains Plaza hotel and 100% of APEC Haus. These sales involve very valuable assets, and the risk of selling them

by FRANK TASO Since he and his cronies Nigel Parker, Musje Werror, Moi Avei, Daire Vele and Jakob Weiss threw out PNG Sustainable Development, the mine has been on a death spiral. It has caught O’Neill Disease, the fatal and untreatable parasitical sickness that infects all State Owned Enterprises. O’Neill and his blood-sucking worms grow fat by siphoning all the goodness out of the host SOE, leaving just a shell requiring regular injections of taxpayer funds medicine to recover, only to be sucked dry all over again. Now O’Neill and his cronies are lining up for another feast on OTML. The Prime Minister has ordered CEO Peter Graham to rip as much money out of the business as they can and give it to the Government as soon as possible to help avoid looming bankruptcy. The OTML board is dominated by O’Neill appointees and cronies including convicted Leadership Code fraudster Moi Avei, , Treasury Secretary and wanted criminal Daire Vele, Western Province Administrator and fra