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In an astounding move, James Marape has rolled out the red carpet to yet another group of foreign investors without proper investigation.
The K4.8 billion Western Province Road and forestry project, has been commended by Marape not even a month after officiating at the highly questionable casino project throwing his full support behind foreign investors in a 600km road and forestry project in Western Province.
On the 24th October 2024 at a media conference about the project, Marape did not name the developer but instead said they were from Italy and were philanthropists. Why not announce the company and make the agreement public?
At the official signing of the project agreement at Government House this week, Marape heaped praise on the Marape-Rosso Government for pushing it across the line. “This project has been a long time coming and today is truly a historical moment. Today I have the absolute pleasure of seeing a K4.8 billion forestry project over 98,000 square kilometres of land.”
In his official statement of 2nd November, Marape named the developer as Epoca Group Limited an Italian-based company headed by Mr Gilberto Maggiolo. Mr Maggiolo left Italy in 1966 and Epoca is a small construction company he part owns in Brisbane. He is in business in PNG with Neville Harsley, also from Brisbane.
The SABL Commission of Inquiry in 2013 found a small Australian owned company headed by Mr Neville Harsley, Independent Timbers and Stevedoring Limited, had undertaken the largest land grab in PNG’s history, acquiring over two million hectares in Western Province. The project by Harsley and his cohorts proposed to build 600 kilometres of road in Western Province and mill the timber felled in a large easement either side of the road. The same project that has now been endorsed by Marape.
Co-Commissioner Nicholas Mirou, in 2013, found that documents prepared by the company owned by Harsley, were ‘deceptive and clearly fraudulent’ and recommended that further investigation be undertaken to establish if ‘international racketeering over land acquisition has been committed’.
Fast forward to 2024, and a simple search of the IPA online records finds Gilberto Maggiolo is a close business associate of Neville Harsley, a central figure in the 2013 COI. Both Harsley and Maggiolo are Directors and/or joint shareholders of Western Province Projects Limited and ETFR Limited and in Australian registered companies ETFR Project Pty Ltd. It is unknown what company if any is Italian based and there is no record of any philanthropists involved.
Why is it that Marape is knowingly doing business with these characters who were named as deceptive and fraudulent in the last land grab and yet simultaneously, Marape is trying to hide their long and dubious history with PNG?
Marape talks big about how there will be no expense to the landowners in this project yet how is this company, Epoca or Western Province Projects or ETFR going to pay for the project when a simple google search reveals their practices. No bank in their right mind will finance such characters especially when endorsed by the increasingly commercially incompetent James Marape. Perhaps Marape will use the recently announced US265m IMF loan to help them out?
Co-commissioner Numapo said in 2013 “with corrupt government officials from implementingagencies riding shotgun for them, opportunistic loggers masquerading as agro-forestry developers are prowling our countryside, scoping opportunities to take advantage of gullible landowners and desperate for cash clan leaders”.
Eleven years on nothing has changed except this time around Marape is the front waving the PNG flag inviting them in, giving legitimacy to businesspeople who require extensive investigation.
Marape is giving overt support to the very same dubious characters but now he has the audacity to call them “philanthropists”. They are not. They appear to be the same brand of money-faced foreigners making off with big tracts of land at Caution Bay and Dirio; the same as the foreigners setting up the casino in Port Moresby and the list goes on and on.
Marape needs to stop spending all his time being the broker for questionable foreigners and get to work and bring online meaningful, genuine projects such as Wafi Golpu; Papua LNG and Porgera delayed and destroyed by his leadership.
PO
billion-agro-forestry-project/
company/5255528
