New government busy

scrapping dubious schemes

State assets transfer to Mauritius aborted

By Patrick Decloitre

VANUATU’S new gov ernment is busy doing away with schemes undertaken by former leaders. Last May, it stopped a plan by a former Finance minister to transfer all of Vanuatu’s State assets to a secret trust fund in Mauritius.

Under a so-called “People of Vanuatu Trust Fund”, former Finance minister Vincent Boulekone had ordered last December that ownership of all 16 of Vanuatu’s statutory corporations and gov ernment companies be transferred from this tax haven to a Mauritius-based “CVDC Holdings SA” trust company, Vanuatu prime minister Donald Kalpokas said in a release.

The creation of the trust had been high ly irregular and was damaging to the repu tation of Vanuatu”, he added. The decision, endorsed by Vanuatu’s Council of minis ters, followed the Attorney General’s advice that the order was “unlawful” and “unenforceable”.

As well, a report published earlier this year by the Vanuatu ombudsman strongly condemned the scheme, stressing the irreg ularities it contained.

The actual transfer of assets couldn’t however take place: Boulekone left office when Kalpokas became prime minister last March 30 after general elections. In a sim ilar move, early June, Kalpokas’ govern ment cancelled the appointments of some 48 of its foreign representatives, mostly in Asia, saying the host countries’ did not give consent.

On top of its eleven “legitimate” con sulates around the world, previous govern ments since 1993 appointed 21 “honorary consuls”, 21 “trade commissioners and six “special advisors” in China, Malaysia, Macau, Canada, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and New Zealand.

The 48 appointments were without prior consultation with foreign affairs in Vanuatu, nor was consent obtained from the host countries, the government said.

The names of several of these “trade commissioners” appeared in reports from the ombudsman’s office, which denounced alleged scams. This included the illegal sale of Vanuatu passports to Asians under a previous government. People named in the reports included a Chinese citizen, Jian Peng Chen, appointed, in January last year

by then Prime minister Serge Vohor, Vanuatu’s honorary consul to Macau, where there is no record of Vanuatu citi zens. Chen had met Vohor one week earli er and made two payments of US$lOO,OOO and HK$5OO,OOO “for the good and well being of the people of Vanuatu”, Patterson alleged.

In June last year, the report goes on, Chen came back to Vanuatu with another Chinese, Larry Yu, who became Vanuatu Trade Commissioner in Cambodia, a coun try Vanuatu has no trade links with. She says Cambodian authorities never approved the appointment.

Chen later obtained ten Vanuatu pass ports for family and friends, all Chinese.

Vanuatu ombudsman Marie-Noelle Patterson issued her first report last December on an alleged passport scam purporting to sell Vanuatu diplomatic, offi cial and ordinary passports to Asians from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong. The Vanuatu cabinet also scrapped 24 “trade commissioners” appointed since 1993 in Taiwan, China, Cambodia, Canada, Vietnam and South Korea. Cabinet kept only eight honorary consuls in Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Japan, Switzerland, France and the United States. ■