Forest Authority Leaning Towards Lower Log Tax

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PAPUA NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

3/16/98

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ITEM #1

Title: Forest Authority leaning towards lower log tax

Source: Post Courier

Date: March 16, 1998

THE Government may have to lower log export taxes and give loggers

relief from royalties and levies in order to save the nation's

forestry industry, according to a highly placed Forest Authority

official.

The official told the Post-Coutier last week that the industry was

important to the national economy and could not be allowed to suffer.

Some relief measures were necessary, and that meant reducing the tax

and allowing other concessions for "an interim period".

He did not say by how much the tax should be lowered.

He said the Forest Authority board had been thinking seriously about

the future of the industry, in the light of the current problems in

Asian markets and pressure from the logging companies which have said

they are operating at a loss and have threatened to pull out unless

they get some relief.

Major investors could not cope with falling log prices, and this posed

a major threat to all other services including employment, health and

education.

Recently the Forest Authority has been assuring the public, through

paid newspaper advertisements, that there will be no reduction in log

export tax and no exemptions on any royalties or levies.

On Thursday Greenpeace Pacific and other non-government organisation

protesters picketed Forest Authority headquarters at Hohola demanding

that the authority and the Government resist pressure to lower taxes

and defer other payments.

The official said: "Why would they (NGOs) be opposing such a move?

What we are trying to do is give some relief to the industry and make

the environment more conducive to our investors.

The measure is only for the interim period and when the market picks

up we can go back."

He said what the NGOs were saying was that the authority should let

the investors suffer and close down.

"To close down the industry would mean a loss of 3000 jobs,

infrastructure, health, education, and royalty payments to

landowners," the official said.

With log prices down to $US65 a cubic metre, loggers could no longer

operate.

The Post-Courier understands that the National Executive Council has

called for a meeting of representatives from the Finance and Prime

Minister's departments, the Forest Authority, loggers, and World Bank.

Greenpeace representative Brian Brunton said the authority was simply

caving in to pressure from the logging companies.

"Giving in to the logging companies will do absolutely nothing to look

after the forests or the economy of Papua New Guinea," he said.

"If the Forest Authority and the World Bank really had the interests

of the forests and the economy at heart they would not be recommending

this."

ITEM #2

Title: PRIME Minister Bill Skate says he was offered three bribes in the past

six months the biggest being for K40 million.

Source: Post Courier

Date: March 16, 1998

PRIME Minister Bill Skate says he was offered three bribes in the past six

months the biggest being for K40 million.

But, he said on the Nine Network's 60 Minutes television program, broadcast in

Australia and by EMTV last night, that he had declined the bribes and had never

offered one himself.

Mr Skate rejected corruption allegations stemming from secretly filmed

videotapes shown by the ABC last year.

The tapes showed him allegedly authorising bribes, and bragging that he was the

godfather of PNG's notorious raskol gangs and had ordered an execution

Asked if he had ever given a bribe, Mr Skate said: ``Never.''

Asked if he had ever been offered a bribe, he replied: ``Sometimes, by some

people, and I declined.'' He said he had been offered three bribes in the past

six months, the largest worth K40 million.

Asked who offered him that bribe, he said: ``It was proposed by (former Skate

adviser) Mujo Sefa.''

Mr Sefa was the man who recorded the secret videotapes.

The Nine Network said the bribe offer stemmed from Malaysian loggers who wanted

the tax laws changed in order to save them $A100 million, but Mr Sefa denied

offering the bribe.

``It's a complete lie,'' Mr Sefa told 60 Minutes. ``It never happened like that.

There was no suggestion there would be any money made from any transaction that

I was involved with.''

He said that as far as he was concerned, Mr Skate was ``corrupt''.

He had been forced to pay bribes on Mr Skate's behalf for fear of his life, he

added.

I had no choice but to toe the line, and I got out very quickly,'' he said.

But Mr Skate said the tapes did not show he was corrupt.

``I am not a killer,'' he said, referring to the ``godfather'' reference in the

Sefa videotapes.

He added: ``You have got to sometimes live in a world of fantasy to be accepted

in this society. That was drinking talk. I thought I was in among my friends,

sitting with my friends.

"But it has taught me one lesson: to be very careful with what you say and who

you deal with.''

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