Justice James Stevenson |
Republished on PNG NEWS on Facebook (2013)
Two Sydney money managers have demanded about $23 million in fees for two years work investing Papua New Guinea taxpayer funds, some of which dropped in value by about $10 million.
And a company they directed also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in a referral or introduction fee to a former PNG prime minister's son in connection with getting the deal to invest the funds.
The revelations have emerged from a row over $43 million of PNG government money that was squirrelled away in a small country bank branch in Lismore in northern NSW.
The money is now the subject of a court case in NSW involving the money managers and Papua New Guinea's third-party motor vehicle insurer, which owns the money.
It has already sparked controversy in PNG with politicians raising concerns about how the $43 million fund, which belonged to the government-owned entity known as the Motor Vehicle Insurances Limited (MVIL), was sent out of the country in 2009.