Forest Minister personally pushed for illegal logging operation

Michael Somare’s Forest Minister Timothy Bonga, with the assistance of Forestry Officers in Port Moresby, personally pushed through the paperwork to allow illegal logging on the Rai Coast in Madang.
The logging is being carried out by a company called GNS Limited in the Rai Coast Timber Rights Purchase (TRP) area 12-18.
On 5th July 2011 the Minister personally signed the documents to cancel the timber licence of the former logging contractor  in the area, Porche Enterprises. Two weeks later, on 18 July, the Minister signed further documents signing the timber licence over to GNS Limited.
This was completely illegal as the award of the new licence was not approved by the National Forest Board prior to the Minister signing and there was never any open tender and bidding for the licence as required under the Forestry Act.
The approval of the new contractors logging plan was then pushed through by officers in Port Moresby without any consultation or input from Provincial Forestry staff or the Provincial Forest Management Committee. The contractor completely failed to do any ground survey, landholder consultation or to properly describe its inteneded work plans.
The Forestry Office in Madang is well aware of local landholders frustrtaion over the TRP which stems from the fact  the landowner company is made up of people who are not from the Rai Coast area. Instead they  are paper landholders in Madang, who managed to get the original timber permit through their political connections. The actual resource owners from Rai Coast have not seen any benefits or development from the landowner company, despite the K10 million paid in royalties over the years
Despite the opposition from local people to the logging, GNS is being allowed to illegal harvest and export logs on the direction of the former Forest Minister and Forestry officers from Port Moresby.
To make matters even worse, GNS is even illegally logging outside the boundaries of the approved TRP. GNS is also failing to submit monthly logging figures so royalty payments can be calculated and is felling undersized trees.