A PC reporter apparently has been traveling around ESP looking at all the development that Michael and Arthur Somare have brought to the province and who does he meet in Wewak? Why its Mr Wong, one of those freindly loggers that the Somare father/son team have been so instrumental in bringing to the province to create all that development. The PC reporter finds of course that Mr Wong can do no wong, or at least that's what he was trying to say with his bad English tokpisin.

It seems that Mr Wong's company treats Papua New Guineans like slaves on their own land. In the PM's own province no less. But that's probably okay with the PM, because logging company RH seems to be the biggest bucks supporter of the NA and the PM needs all the Mr Wongs he can get as allies if he is to buy his way to a nother term as PM.

Perhaps the PM doesn't much worry about how his own people are treated in ESP so long as he sees that money from all the Mr Wong's and the Wong bosses is flowing into his campaign fund and the Somare family accounts. On the other hand, Labour Inspector Moses Maki would do well to look for the termination letter in his mailbox, courtesy of Betha Somare's busy little laptop.


East Sepik Province Logging camps sub standard: Inspector
Post Courier 14 March, 2007

EMPLOYMENT conditions at two logging camps in the East Sepik Province are below human standards according to the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.

Labour Inspector Moses Maki highlighted this in a letter addressed to the general manager of Wood Master Ltd which has two logging camps, Kaup and Haoaian on March 7, 2007.

Mr Maki in his seven-page letter, raised 13 points.

He said there were no proper toilets and workers were using the nearby bushes which he said was unhygienic as most workers did their cooking on open fire outside their rooms and also ate outside.

“We were told by the workers that you force the employees to work during rainy seasons. Workers are force(ed) to work when it is raining and that rain coats or umbrella(s) are not provided,” Mr Maki wrote.

He also highlighted that when workers were forced to stay at home because of the rains, their pay was docked.

However, a Mr Wong speaking from Wewak was heard saying something to the effect that he received the letter but said “giaman giaman” when asked about the letter written to the company with the directives.

Mr Wong also said in a mixture of incomprehensive Tok Pisin and English that there were 10 toilets but most of what he was saying could not make any sense.

The company has been given 21 days to comply with the directives and take corrective measures.

Other areas Mr Maki highlighted were:

-Workers are not provided food rations on the camp site

-The rooms provided are 3x2 metre rooms and are inadequate to house three men and when it rains they are very dirty and there are no mattresses, pillows and mosquito nets.

-Overtime payments are not properly calculated, thus apparently cheating employees.

Mr Maki said “the employer has not allowed the employees to sign to confirm hours they have accrued for that pay period with their respective supervisors’’.

Please if anyone knows who owns this Wood Master Ltd company, please post it here so we can all know. Are they an RH spider group or someone else?

The Somare family owns part of it if you don't know.

Who are the actual owners, where is the company from, what relatioship to RH etc.

I also would like to know the ownership of this company.

A company search/extract is easily obtained from the Companies Office and costs K10 the last time I was in Pom.

The exporting company for the one you mention is Brilliant investments. Read below for the connection of Brilliant investments to the Somare family.


The Rape of PNG's Forests
The Australian

by Greg Roberts



SASA Zibe sighs as he explains why he believes he was sacked by Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Michael Somare as the country's environment minister.

"I trod on too many toes in the logging industry and it's got powerful friends," Zibe says. "I insisted that our industry standards should be no less than those in Australia. I paid a high price for that." (NOTE: Sasa Zibe has since sold out to Somare in exchange for the Agriculture Ministry)

PNG government documents obtained by Inquirer demonstrate how Malaysian logging companies that hold concessions to log eight million hectares of rainforest in PNG are operating in defiance of the country's laws with the blessing of Somare's Government. Port Moresby now faces restrictions on timber imports by Australia and other Western nations, which are increasingly frustrated at PNG's failure to act against unscrupulous operators in the industry.

Zibe says that at the time of his sacking 18 months ago, he was implementing
measures to crack down on the corruption, human rights abuses and
environmental degradation that have become the industry's hallmarks. Since then, the environment department's enforcement unit has been effectively disbanded. "Now there is nobody watching over what these companies get up to," says Zibe, who remains an MP in Somare's ruling National Alliance Party.

Compliance audits completed by the PNG Government's forestry review team have
found numerous breaches of regulations in all 11 projects studied. A report
on the Asengseng project, typical of the rest, said loan conditions negotiated
between the Government and the World Bank to improve forestry practices were
not met. Political pressure resulted in new permits continuing to be issued
quickly, in defiance of government policy to log forests on a sustainable basis.

The report said compliance requirements were "typically either trivialised or
ignored". The Asengseng project was illegal because it was not mentioned in
the national forest plan and there was no legal instrument to record landowner
agreement. Three government agencies failed to comply with due process. The
audits, the review team's latest, were conducted over 12 months to March last
year.

Somare has a long personal association with the loggers. As a director of the
Sepik River Development Corporation, he was forced to front a 1989 inquiry
into the industry by retired Australian judge Thomas Barnett, who found Somare
should be referred tothe Ombudsman Commission for allegedly lying under oath
about a logging concession held by the SRDC in East Sepik Province.

The SRDC, which Somare still heads, negotiated a logging deal over the
concession in 1991 with Hey Bridge Pty Ltd, in which his son Arthur is a leading shareholder. Arthur Somare was forced to resign in March 2006 as PNG's planning minister over allegations of financial impropriety.

Last year, Malaysian company Brilliant Investment took over Somare's SRDC concession. The PNG Forest Board is investigating whether timber permits issued to Brilliant Investments are valid.

Three of Somare's five children are directors of their family company, SAB:
Arthur, his brother Sana and their sister Betha, who is the Prime Minister's
press secretary. SAB is involved in several logging operations in East Sepik
Province.

PNG authorities are investigating allegations of illegal logging in the
Morijau wildlife management area in the province. Betha Somare says she knows
nothing about logging in the reserve but she declines to comment further on the operations of SAB.

Speaking on behalf of her father, Betha Somare says he had nothing to do with
the Hey Bridge negotiations and has no direct involvement with the industry.
"He has never profited from a logging company."

She defends the Prime Minister's forestry policies. "The people of PNG want
development, but not at any price. His leadership has always guaranteed this."

A confidential National Executive Council minute signed by Somare in 2004
shows how his Government rejected warnings by the World Bank that it would
withhold about $30million worth of loan funds because of concerns about logging in the Wawoi Guavi and Vailala logging concessions, both held by Malaysian forestry giant Rimbunan Hijau.

Somare conceded that the issue risked damaging relations with the World Bank
and compromising PNG's ability to raise loans. However, the permits would not
be revoked because of the "adverse political, social, economic and legal
implications", Somare wrote. The loan funds were subsequently withheld.

The Rimbunan Hijau Group is owned by Malaysia's Tiong family. It accounts for
80 per cent of logging in PNG and has an annual turnover of more than
$1.5billion. Rimbunan is a big player in the country's economic and political life.

Royalties from the group make up 3 per cent of government revenue. Rimbunan
owns one of PNG's two main newspapers, The National, which runs a fiercely
pro-logging line, as well as its biggest supermarket chain, RH Hypermarket. Somare declared in a recent speech that Rimbunan "must be supported" in the face of international criticism of its logging practices.

The closeness of ties between the Somare Government and Rimbunan is reflected
in a 2004 letter sent by Rimbunan managing director James Lau to Forest
Minister Patrick Pruaitch. Lau told Pruaitch he had learned of a Forest Board
decision to issue a show-cause notice to the company over its Vailala concession.

Pruaitch promptly wrote to board chairman Wari Iamo ordering the indefinite
deferral of a board meeting planned to discuss the notice, which was never
issued.

Documents show how Pruaitch seeks reimbursement from his own department for
expenses. A Forest Authority remittance advice records K680 ($279) being paid
to Pruaitch as a refund of 2003 club membership fees for the South Pacific
Motor Sports Club in Port Moresby.

A memorandum from Wari Iamo to National Forest Service finance controller
Robby Louai of the same date shows Iamo sought a refund for the same fees. A
report commissioned by the National Forest Service from consultants Quest
Investigation International examined spending of NFS money by Pruaitch over four months in 2004. Six different motor vehicles were provided to Pruaitch, including a car worth K3797 for a staff member to "pick up some confidential document".

The minister receives travelling and entertainment allowances but he dipped
into the public purse - augmented in large part by Australia's $300million a year in budgetary aid to PNG - for such items as a K2426 dinner for "bodyguards".

The minister's spending was an "exercise in self-enrichment and double dipping
of the public purse", the report said.

Somare ignored the report's recommendation that Pruaitch be referred to
police. Pruaitch's office declined to respond to written questions from Inquirer.

Some of the most severe criticism of the PNG Government's handling of the
industry comes from its own agencies. A PNG Planning Department report described as "cause for serious concern" complaints in 2004 that Rimbunan used police to silence complaints against logging. Investigators were told that protesters were bashed and their homes were torched.

The closeness of ties between police and the company is reflected in a letter
from the Kamusie police detachment to Rimbunan company Straits Marine asking
for money to "complete the mission". Rimbunan community relations manager Axel
Wilhelm replies that police have never been asked to act against logging
opponents. PNG's National Intelligence Organisation claimed in reports on
Rimbunan's Turama and Vailala logging concessions that people died after drinking from the Karoa River after fuel drums had been dumped in it, and others fell ill when fuel and industrial waste were dumped in the Purari River. A 2004 report by PNG's Community Development Department said timber workers in Wawoi Guavi were paid less than one kina an hour, worked 12-hour days and were not supplied with boots or helmets.

Rimbunan's 1.5-million-hectare Wawoi Guavi concession has been particularly
controversial. A villager from the area, Patrick Pate, points to a scar on his
nose as he tells Inquirer he was assaulted recently by unknown assailants
after leading an anti-logging protest. "They don't let anybody stand in their
way," Pate says.

He claims that locals working for Rimbunan get little out of logging. "They
got credit with shops owned by the company, and that uses up all their money."
People often sell their daughters to Malaysians in the logging camps for sex.
"All the old family ties are falling apart."

Wilhelm replies that the group's 4000 employees are treated well and that
logging operations are always conducted in accordance with PNG laws. He says he is unaware of any links between logging-related pollution and deaths or
sickness. Allegations of environmental degradation and sexual abuse were made by marginal groups of landowners "coerced by third parties pursuing their own
agendas", he says.

In a National Court document, landowner Max Mera claims he was offered
K30,000 to drop a 2004 court action against a logging operation by Rimbunan company Frontier Holdings; Mera claims he initially agreed and accepted a down payment of K3000, but changed his mind.

Wilhelm replies that Mera had fallen out with fellow landowners and that
Rimbunan never offered bribes, adding: "We hold on record various attempts by
marginal groups of landowners and third parties to extort money from the company in exchange for not creating problems."

A PNG Community Development Department report says women employed as domestic
servants in the Vanimo concession by Malaysian company Vanimo Forest Products
in 2004 were expected to provide sexual favours and were beaten if they
refused. Women were forced to insert ball bearings in their vaginas before sex to boost the men's pleasure and had given birth to large numbers of illegitimate children. Fourteen complaints of child sex abuse were lodged against one foreign company employee. The company did not return calls.

Reports of this nature have prompted a Howard government decision to ban the
import of illegally logged timber from PNG and elsewhere. Details of the ban
are expected to be announced soon. Brisbane-based TLB Timbers imports 17,000
cubic metres, about half of Rimbunan's annual timber exports, to Australia. A
TLB Timbers spokesman says there is no evidence any Rimbunan timber has been
felled illegally.

International pressure on Port Moresby over the logging issue is mounting,
nonetheless. New Zealand's High Court has ruled in favour of the expulsion by
the NZ Timber Importers Association of Rimbunan company the LumberBank.

In London, the Wolseley Group has banned the import of plywood from China,
the main market for PNG timber. Activists in Australia plan a campaign against
the ANZ bank because Rimbunan is a client and the bank provides guarantees for
logging companies to secure approval for new projects in PNG. An ANZ spokesman
says the bank has raised concerns with Rimbunan.

Anti-logging activists claim the Somare Government is stepping up a campaign
of intimidation against them. Eco-Forestry Forum co-ordinator Ken Mondaia says
he moves house in Port Moresby every two or three months because of threats.
"You don't feel safe when you keep getting visited by police. You are always
looking over your shoulder."

An impediment to new logging projects has been removed with recent
legislative changes. Instead of having to go through the usual assessment processes, new projects can be classified as extensions to existing logging concessions.

That gets around the difficulty Rimbunan had when PNG's Ombudsman Commission
concluded that the 800,000ha Kamula Dosa extension to its Wawoi Guavi concession was illegal because it bypassed approval processes.

"A 37-step approval process has been reduced to nothing," says Port Moresby
lawyer Anne Kajir, whose stand against illegal logging this year earned her a
coveted international conservation award, the Goldman Environmental Prize.

"We've gone from a situation that was very bad to one that is much worse,"
Kajir says.