Concern raised over Kumul Petroleum’s financial statement

Opposition Leader Patrick Pruaitch is concerned with the Government’s failure to disclose audited financial statements of Kumul Petroleum (KP) and other State-owned enterprises.
Pruaitch said the minister responsible for KP, Sam Basil, seemed ignorant of the enterprise’s financial situation and showed lack of concern for massive losses caused by the Government’s UBS loan fiasco.
“It is the duty of Kumul Petroleum, the minister responsible for KP and the government of the day to formally disclose audited financial statements of KP and other State-owned enterprises and not to just provide erroneous interpretations of their performance,” Pruaitch said.
“Although Kumul Petroleum has failed to present its 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 annual accounts to Parliament, the Opposition believed it was highly commendable that, for the first time, it published its 2017 annual report on the company’s website.”
Pruaitch claimed that KP’s 2017 annual report had been deleted from its website and it was unfortunate for the interested members of the public as they would not be able to check out misinformation coming from the Government.
“This lack of transparency has been raised previously in Parliament over the question of tax evasion on the part of Kumul Petroleum and in May last year, the Treasurer, Charles Abel, promised that KP’s annual accounts for 2014 and 2015 would be tabled in Parliament but to this day this has not happened.”
“The Government’s ignorance about Kumul Petroleum’s financial performance was shown through the statement made by Basil that the company had made a profit of “about K170 million” in 2017 and that it had “never made a loss”.
“I’m not sure where Basil discovered the K170 million figure. It is not contained anywhere in the KP 2017 annual report. Instead on page 45, where the only kina values are provided, the net profit for 2017 is listed as K185,245,000 – I repeat K185 million and not K170 million.