PM’S ILLEGAL UBS-OIL SEARCH SCAM COSTS PNG A BILLION KINA
by MARK AMBANE Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s illegal and corrupt deal with UBS to buy 10 percent of Oil Search is now a full-scale disaster. It is threatening the viability of the 2016 Budget and could further undermine Government finances, which are already at crisis point. The State’s 150 million shares were bought in March 2014 for $8.20 each. That is a total $A1.2 billion, or about K3 billion at the exchange rate early that month. A few days later, on 14 March 2014, the Prime Minister boasted that the country had already made a profit on the shares of $A75 million (about K170 million). Today, the losses on the purchase are stupendous. Those 159 million shares were worth slightly less than $A5.70 today. That is a loss of $A400 million. At today’s exchange rate that is about K850 million. Peter O’Neill, Peter Botton of Oil Search and UBS have cost Papua New Guineans almost a billion kina. Worse still, the disastrous slide in the value of Oil