SPECIAL MINING LEASE OSIKAIYANG LANDOWNERS ASSOCIATION INC (5-4832)Level 2, Karoona House
Panguna Town, Panguna District
Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea
8 FEBRUARY 2019
PRESS RELEASE
PANGUNA LICENSE TO BE ISSUED TO A SECRET FOREIGN COMPANY-DIRECTORS AND SHAREHOLDERS ARE NOT PUBLICLY DISCLOSED
The Autonomous Bougainville Government (“ABG”)is contemplating amending the Bougainville Mining Act(“BMA”),which will see Customary Ownership removed from the statute, by attempting to backdate the controversial legislative changes by almost 5 years, maybe to try and get around Bougainville Copper Limited which is not solved in this plan.
It is intended to issue a Special Mining Lease, circumventing every safeguard and due process, over Pangunaand all new mining areas in Bougainville,to a company registered not in Papua New Guinea, but the British Virgin Island.
The secretive company, incorporated in August last year,is associated with Perth entrepreneur Jeffrey McGlinn and is named Bougainville Advance Mining or BAMfor short.No details of the directors or shareholders are available on public searches-the information has been deliberately withheld.
It was also recently discovered recentlythatMrMcGlinn’s lawyers drafted the amending legislation that will facilitate the transfer and stripping of Landowner rights that has so deeply offended so many.
In addition to failing to disclose even the directors and shareholders of BAM, Mr McGlinn refuses to disclose who will put up the money for BAM. Similarly, the ABG also refuses to release any agreements in relation to this proposed deal.
Mr Miriori the Chairman of the Panguna Landowner Association, the Special Mining Lease Osikaiyang Landowners Association said, “McGlinn is brazenly demanding that the ownership of Customary Owners to Panguna is expunged retrospectively, by provisions his own lawyers have drafted for his benefit.
This beggars belief in itself, but then, rather than transfer ownership to the State, Mr McGlinn is demanding that the ownership is transferred blindly to his secretive company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
He refuses to disclose the directors of BAM, the shareholders of BAM, and the agreements BAM has with the ABG and its officials. We do not know who controls BAM,” said Mr Miriori. “Yet we are contemplating transferring Panguna to it for no consideration.”
If the ABG blindly complies with these outrageous demands, the ABG says Mr McGlinn will then and only then, give them US$150m - maybe. But he doesn’t have the money yet and you would expect any new investors he can attract would want a stable investment environment but now – given his actions to date, that is near impossible – there is no longer any stable rule of law if his demands are met?”
Mr Miriori said, “Panguna is a national treasure and Mr McGlinn is treating every Bougainvillean as a fool. Mr McGlinn must surely be high fiving himself and thinking all his chickens have come to roost. We, the Panguna Landowners, hope the ABG begins to look at all of these terrible demands urgently before we make a terrible mistake.”
Philip Miriori
Chairman
Lawrence Daveona
Special Advisor – Former Chairman
(20min delay)
