PNG EITI report

ACCORDING to the 2016 report by the PNG EITI, there were some figures in the royalties and development levies paid for by ExxonMobil PNG to the government, recorded as not being received by the government with no explanations as to why these zero figures were not identical to payments made by the company?
Can the government urgently clarify why there are zero figures not matching the company payments occurring in such a report?
Could the missing figures be telling us something that should not be made known to the public?
The government has been failing its citizens and not publicly reporting its revenues being received from the extractive resources sector covering mining and petroleum, for so long.
For instance the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI), in its 2016 annual report, reported an amount of K22.5mil was paid directly to JP MORGAN Bank (by way of borrower restricted payment) from dividends from KPHL shares in Oil Search Ltd prior to its ill-fated share sales of 2017.
KPHL ended up with a mere cash payment of K800,000 from the initial Oil Search Ltd dividend payment after the UBS loan repayments!
Unfortunately it appears that KPHL has been taken as a scapegoat for the transaction (UBS loan) it did not involve with during the negotiations.
In the EITI 2017 annual report, KPHL was paid K2 billion in revenues, with a reported dividends payment to the Treasury Department of only K300mil.
What is missing is that there were no reports of actual revenues being received by KPH after direct payments were made to JP MORGAN bank!
Can the government through KPHL explained where the missing revenues are? Why are these being paid to KPHL and not directly to the government’s consolidated revenue?
With the government now crying out to collect its share of revenues from its (SOEs) State-owned enterprises, it should immediately investigate why dividends to the State are not being received quickly enough to meet the government’s annual budgetary obligations?
The Kumul group of companies are renowned for their lack of accountability and transparency, and there is hardly any recent evidence of their books being audited by the Auditor-General!
The country has now lost one of its strategic investments and revenue earners through its dividends receipts from Oil Search Ltd, as the country longer has shares with that company, all because of the stupid UBS loan issue, which according to reports, had cost the State about K750mil and which may have increased.
For the benefit of the general public, the foregoing is obtained from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (PNG EITI) reports, which the government should be publishing for wider audience to be informed about the extractive sector revenues being paid by companies and received by the government.

Lorenitz Gaius
Ketskets village