Bougainville’s president accepted an offer from an Indian company to cover the cost of his wife’s “life-saving kidney surgery” before signing a major mining deal, according to a new report released by a global investigative non-profit.
The investigation titled ‘A Kidney Transplant, Ignored Advice, and President’s Surprise Pick to Run a $160 Billion Pacific Island Mine’ was published by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on Wednesday.
The investigation comes as Papua New Guinea’s national parliament is set to debate this week whether to ratify the 97.7 percent vote by Bougainvilleans for independence in their 2019 non-binding referendum.
According to the OCCRP, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) President Ishmael Toroama bypassed an official bidding process to select the publicly traded Indian company Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd.
The bidding was for Bougainville’s Panguna mine, which contains one of the world’s largest copper reserves. A bloody civil war more than three decades ago, which resulted in between 10,000 and 15,000 deaths, forced its closure.
Panguna mine contains one of the world’s largest copper reserves.
ABC News / Tim Swanston
But the ABG has been trying to reopen the controversial mine to inject life into the autonomous Papua New Guinea region as it works toward gaining independence from PNG.
The OCCRP found that Toroama made the decision to sign the deal with Lloyds despite advice from the ABG’s majority-owned Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) that the firm lacked the technical and financial capacity of rival bidders.
“Bougainville’s majority state-owned mining company spent around 10 months on a public search for an international partner, speaking to some of the world’s largest and most experienced mining companies,” the OCCRP investigation states.
“But last November, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama made a shock announcement: he had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to redevelop the mine with Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd, a publicly-traded Indian company with no background in major copper and gold extraction.”
Reports at the time described the deal as “secretive” with local landowners raising concerns about transparency.
“Toroama’s surprise move followed a monthslong campaign by Lloyds and its managing director, Balasubramanian Prabhakaran, that completely bypassed the official process to select a partner on the project,” the OCCRP investigation found.
“This charm offensive included Toroama accepting an extraordinary favor. The president told OCCRP that, last October, Prabhakaran offered to fly his wife to India for a life-saving kidney transplant at no apparent cost, which Toroama accepted.
“Toroama did not publicly disclose his acceptance of the apparent gift.”
The OCCRP found that Lloyds paid for the kidney transplant for Toroama’s wife, according to an employee of the clinic where the operation took place.
According to Toroama, his wife’s operation was a “personal arrangement” he had agreed upon with Lloyds managing director.
He told OCCRP that he only agreed to it after it was offered to him “three times”.
“Although Toroama said it was his understanding that the cost of the first lady’s treatment was handled by the executive, he said it did not influence his decision to choose Lloyds,” the OCCRP reported.
Lloyds did not respond to multiple requests from OCCRP for comment.
