Sandline/PNG clash

over US$1B million

PNG leaders summit Papua New Guinea leaders will meet this month to address economic, social and development issues that have affected the nation during the past two years.

The summit, titled “Development Dialogue: PNG 2000 and Beyond,” will be held in Manus Province, April 4-7.

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Kiribati will use the money to upgrade tourist facilities on Kiritimati (Christmas) Island, in the Northern Line Islands Group south of Hawaii, and promote it as a tourist destination for millennium cele brations.

Special JAL fare cut to boost CNMI's tourism Japan Airlines has reduced airfares by 50 to 75 percent for three special occa sions, May - July, in a move to lure more Japanese travelers to Saipan, according to JAL General Manager Kaishun Nishigaya. The cut in airfare is part of JAL’s promotional campaign to help the Northern Marianas get back its lost mar ket share in Japan.

Police suspect sabotage in food stamp

programme investigations

Police in American Samoa suspect sabotage in their investigations into alle gations of fraud in the territory’s multi million dollar Food Stamp Programme.

Police believe that a computer contain ing data for the programme has been sab otaged. As a result, nine employees of the programme have been placed on leave indefinitely.

President refutes claims of special treatment of ministers The President of Kiribati, Teburoro Tiito, has denied that the country’s Public Utilities Board has given Government ministers special treatment over the repayment of their electricity bills.

President Tiito was reacting to allega tions by an opposition parliamentarian.■

THE legal battle between

the Papua New Guinea government and merce nary organisation Sandline International is heating up.

At centre stage is US$lB million which an international tribunal has ruled that PNG has to pay.

However, the PNG government has refused to make the payout.

As a result. Sandline registered the debt owed to it by PNG in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and the United States and has identified PNG assets from which the debt could be set tled.

A Sandline representative told PIM that the company was not making a gen eral statement, but that they had clarified a number of points through AAP.

Sandline’s commercial advisor Michael Grunberg told AAP that the com pany was “very familiar” with PNG assets in Australia.

However, he would not disclose what the company’s next move there would be.

Senior PNG foreign affairs officials and diplomats have said they had asked various governments, including Australia, to invoke diplomatic immunity to protect PNG diplomatic assets from seizure.

Grunberg said PNG’s claim that the Belgian government had intervened to lift a freeze on the bank account of the PNG mission in Brussels was “untrue”.

"The account was never frozen in the first place and it’s very misleading for these statements to be made by the state,” he told AAP.

Grunberg said diplomatic accounts were inviolate, contained only small amounts of money, so there was no point in Sandline going after them.

“We’re interested in more substantial commercial accounts,” he said.

Diplomatic immunity did not apply to those assets, and, for example, most of

PNG’s assets in Australia were therefore vulnerable.

The Sandline advisor said Skate’s accusation that Sandline was holding PNG to ransom was also “unfair and mis

leading again”.

“All we are doing is seeking to collect a debt. Any ethical country that works to principles would meet those obligations,”

Grunberg said.

Sandline was hired by the former gov ernment under Sir Julius Chan to assist the PNG Defence Force in ending the Bougainville secessionist crisis, but the contract was aborted in March 1997.

Last year an international tribunal ruled that PNG pay Sandline SUSIB mil lion (5A29.22 million) still owed under the contract, but PNG was set to seek leave to appeal against the decision in the Queensland Supreme Court in Brisbane on March 11.

The PNG government has indicated that it will also seek to recover SUSIB million already paid to Sandline by the former Chan government, in new legal proceedings in Port Moresby.

Grunberg said PNG’s action of run ning “a parallel piece of litigation in their own country” was “disrespectful” to the Australian courts and to the international tribunal.

Sandline accused the Papua New Guinea government of making mislead ing statements about Sandline’s attempts to secure SUSIB million still owed to it by PNG under an aborted SUS 36 million contract for men and equipment, accord ing to AAP.

Grunberg, said from London that com ments made by PNG prime minister Bill Skate that Sandline had been engaged by the former Chan government to “murder Papua New Guineans on Bougainville” for “blood money” were potentially libel lous. Sandline has previously been paid to help quell distrubances in Africa. ■