Where has all the money gone?

POREBADA, Boera, Papa and Lealea are just 10-20 minutes drive from the seat of government in Waigani and the National Capital District.
But in reality, the people of these four Motuan villages who number about 20,000 are as far away as the people of Wutung, West Sepik, on the border of PNG and Indonesia; Rambutso or Bipi islands of Manus, the Motlocks of Bougainville, or the Iwa and Gawa islands of eastern Milne Bay who share the border with Solomon Islands.
Landowner representatives who make up an umbrella entity to act on behalf of these four villages signed an agreement with the government and the developer of the K50 billion PNG LNG project, Esso Highlands Ltd three years ago for the use of their land as part of this biggest resource development project in PNG.
The Motuans own what is known as portion 152 where the LNG plant is located.
Three years later, the 20,000 Motuans are still waiting to see the benefits of this agreement. The agreement was supposed to have been reviewed, but unfortunately for them the review date expired on Tuesday.
They say that under the agreement, Esso Highlands and the government are obliged to put in sealed roads, water supplies and health and education infrastructure and services. None of these things have been done.
On top of that, the developer had made a lump sum payment of a substantial amount of money to be paid as salaries for workers who are supposed to be paid K10 and hour.
The workers are currently getting K2 to K3.25 an hour.
What has happened to the rest of the money? Where has it gone to? Why has the government failed to get Esso Ltd to have the agreement reviewed before the date elapsed?
And why is it that the respective rural local level government in the Kairuku Hiri district and Central Provincial Government are not parties to this important agreement?
Furthermore, was the Prime Minister aware that the agreement was to elapse on Tuesday?
If not, why didn’t the Minister for Mining, Minister for Petroleum and Energy and Minister responsible for State Enterprises brief him in the weeks or months leading up to the due date?
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s message about graft and corruption is very clear.
The local mass media have reported this fact and continues to do so. But for the record, and for the benefit of the people of PNG, we now quote Australian reporter Eoin Blackwell, who is the AAP PNG Correspondent based in Port Moresby.
This is what he reported yesterday (Wed Oct 10): “It is common knowledge that many PNG officials have acquired property and bank accounts in Australia well beyond their official earning capacity… Six politicians are currently subject to an intelligence-gathering phase … into $A11.5 million in property deals in Cairns and northern Australia.”
Quoting Taskforce Sweep chairman Sam Koim, Mr Blackwell reports: “They have bought property and other assets, put money in bank accounts and gambled heavily in (Australian) casinos and have never been troubled by having their ill-gotten gains taken off them.
“Unless the money can be prevented from leaving PNG, or prevented from entering Australia, the bad guys win and the rest of PNG suffers.”
What can the O’Neill-Dion government do about all this?