Minister clarifies contractor payments

The National Main Stories

MINISTER for Works and Highways Solan Mirisim on Friday provided a list of payments made to five major local contractors carrying out various road projects under the Connect PNG programme.
He said he chose this unorthodox way to disprove another list doing the rounds on social media which was released by former prime minister Peter O’Neill.
Mirisim said O’Neill’s list was a fabrication, that payments contained there were hugely and falsely inflated, and published for political convenience at a time when there was a motion of no-confidence being mooted.
Mirisim said all the contracts had been awarded and
distributed fairly throughout the country with Mamose contractors getting K1.7 billion, Highlands K1.6 billion, Southern K600 million, Autonomous Region of Bougainville K452 million and New Guinea Islands between K300 and K400 million over the last four years.
He told the media on Friday that O’Neill’s claim that the Government had awarded huge contracts and paid enormous amount of money to few contractors and that those contracts were not being fairly distributed was false.
He said the allegations were only made was to discredit the Government’s flagship Connect PNG programme and was pursued only to score points leading up to vote of no confidence.
The payments made to the five contractors which Mirisim provided are:

  • ALBE Limited was paid K8,953,633.42 million for 43 contracts awarded between 2022 and last year with the total value of K14,100,604.76,
  • AMAKU and Sons Construction Limited was paid K30,628,671.75 for 15 contracts awarded last year valued at K119,432.602.52 million,
  • CIVIL Contractors Pacific Limited was paid K47,414,856.32 million for the 10 contracts awarded between 2020 and 2022 valued at K240,411,288.88 million,
  • Construction Oceanic Limited was paid K27,279,423.08 million for the seven contracts awarded last year at the value of K221,851,364.25 million,
  • AND the department paid K43,339,441.49 million to Ipwenz Construction Limited for 19 contracts awarded last year at the value of K331,024,618.63 million.

Mirisim said the payment figures and contracts value provided by O’Neill were delusory and did not match the actual contract value and payments records from the Government’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) and contract registers of the Works and Highways Department.