Vele explains signature drama

By BOURA GORUKILA
TREASURY secretary Dairi Vele told the Commission of Inquiry into the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) loan that cabinet submission was prepared for the then-treasurer Don Polye, but since he had refused to sign it, he (Vele) inserted former prime minister Peter O’Neill’s signature a few days before the submission was taken to Cabinet for discussion on March 6, 2014.
“After I informed O’Neill that Polye would not sign, he directed me to go back and try again and tell him that he would be sacked if he didn’t sign,” Vele said.
“I again asked Polye to sign the documents and he said he would not sign and that they can sack him if they wished and he wouldn’t change his mind.
“O’Neill then told me that he would sack minister Polye as he was causing instability in government.”
“I later heard that Polye had been decommissioned,” Vele said.
He was responding to questions from Chief Commissioner Sir Salamo Injia about who the submission was prepared for and the events that followed.
When asked how the State appointed financial advisers for the UBS transaction, Vele said on Dec 19, 2013, NEC, in its decision No: 492/2013, noted the submission that UBS was the preferred financial adviser and arranger by the International Petroleum Investment Company exchangeable bond review committee.
“Then approved and directed that Bank of Papua New Guinea (BPNG) provide final evaluations on the proposals for refinancing the Petroleum exchangeable bonds to be obtained from Citi Bank and UBS to refinance the Petroleum exchangeable bonds and to retain the interest of the State in Oil Search.
“The IPIC committee, which I was a member of, was the body that selected the financial adviser and whose engagement documents would then be the subject of another NEC approval once they were obtained from UBS.”
Vele said it was then up to the Petroleum and BPNG to evaluate which financier.
Meanwhile, Vele was unable to present financial bills to the inquiry regarding the K1.6 million payment Treasury Department made to Pacific Legal Group.