Essay by Eric Worrall
Who could have predicted that if the USA and other rich donor nations drop millions of dollars of climate aid into poor countries with serious corruption problems, some of it might be stolen?
PNG climate change officials accused of skimming $2 million in public funds
Exclusive by PNG correspondent Tim Swanston, Stephen Long and Theckla Gunga
Senior staff at the government body responsible for carrying out Papua New Guinea’s climate change response are facing major criminal proceedings after the alleged misappropriation of more than $2 million.
Key points:
- Staff at PNG’s Climate Change and Development Authority have been accused of corruption and misappropriation of public funds
- Finance manager Ivan Aipi faces 35 charges, including illegally executing cheques for the benefit of his boss and associates
- The ABC understands two whistleblowers raised concerns with authorities last year
Police have arrested and charged Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA)’s finance manager, Ivan Aipi, after armed officers raided the authority’s Port Moresby premises earlier this year, seizing computers and financial records.
…
The allegations against CCDA staff include official corruption and misappropriation of public funds, and “illegally executing” cheques for the benefit of CCDA’s acting managing director William Lakain and his associates.
The body is funded by local taxes, international grants including money provided by the United Nations, and contributions from a rainforest preservation project with links to Australian businesses.
…
A Four Corners investigation earlier this year found logging was taking place in rainforests that were meant to be protected by the project, which has sold carbon credits to Australian banks, super funds, law firms, the Sydney Opera House, and environmental group Planet Ark.
Police raided the CCDA just days before the report aired.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-28/png-national-climate-change-officers-accused-of-skimming-funds/102230786
10% for the big guy? Obviously I’m talking about a different big guy than whoever Hunter Biden referenced in his laptop emails, because there is plainly nothing suspicious about Hunter Biden’s financial activities. And of course the PNG officials have not been convicted of a crime, they have only been charged with misappropriation of public funds at this stage.
WUWT reported on the referenced Four Corners carbon credit scandal expose back in February.
Well! Who’d have thought it!
Quite a few people I would think…
Only £10m of £2.2bn in fraudulent Covid loans recovered‘Laissez-faire’ approach put billions of public money at risk, watchdog says
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/26/only-10m-of-22bn-in-fraudulent-covid-loans-recovered/
[Our] Money is being thrown around like confetti
Am I surprised? Of course not…
As far as I am concerned ALL climate change money is stolen money.
This will be the tip of the iceberg a million bucks is a unbelievable fortune for some one in the third world
“Who could have predicted that if the USA and other rich donor nations drop millions of dollars of climate aid into poor countries with serious corruption problems, some of it might be stolen?”
Surely, they modelled it? And, no doubt, with some fascinating parameters, too.
UNDP is working to strengthen Papua New Guinea’s protected areas networks – and is supporting Government to launch a biodiversity fund. This month, environmental experts gathered in Port Moresby for the second Protected Area Forum to strategise on key conservation issues, including governance, management and sustainable financing for improved biodiversity protections.
UNDP’s forestry management projects are enhancing forest carbon stocks, developing new financial mechanisms to reduce deforestation and maintain the tropical forest that covers approximately 75% of the country at present.
https://www.undp.org/papua-new-guinea/stories/transforming-conservation-papua-new-guinea
Well, they’ve got the new financial mechanisms bit figured out.
“UNDP’s forestry management projects are enhancing…” the depth of some pockets.
Here is the thing about the International flow of money and corruption: The money flows in both directions. When some of the money is diverted, by an act known as “commission” or “expenses” some of this money is rebated to the sender. Eric has hinted at the process and we will someday see the actual events revealed.
Much of the money – be it from Russians, Arabs or any other dubious foreigners – is used to buy up Kensington (London, England)
[Sheikh Mohammed’s] ownership of many exclusive properties in some of the most prestigious parts of London: Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Kensington. In 2013, one of his family’s companies bought a property in Belgravia’s historic Eaton Square from the estate of the Duke of Westminster, for £17.3 million – an illustration of historic British gentry selling to the dynastic billionaires of the Gulf.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/14/revealed-the-huge-british-property-empire-of-sheikh-mohammed
…the scale of billionaire Russian ownership of mansions and penthouses in London has grown exponentially.
Transparency International recently estimated that more than £1.5 billion worth of UK property was bought by Russians accused of corruption or with links to the Kremlin between 2016 and 2021.
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/more-than-half-the-homes-in-londons-most-exclusive-postcodes-are-empty-041923
We used to call it money laundering.
I have some experience of AML procedures in the UK; at one level, the regs. as published are fiendishly enforced by those legally required to abide thereby. Interpretation of the regs. is allowed and I have on more than a few occasions argued where the interpretation is obviously non sensical – won the argument sometimes, crashed and burned on other occasions. What is true is that an identical situation can be subject to different interpretation with two different “financial services” – both say they are complying with AML legislation……
Source of funds is a very key and non negotiable part of AML sign off on a relevant transaction; I doubt any property transaction involving Arab oil billionaires or Russian oligarch is not funded via UK bank accounts – my questions are “how far back do UK banks trace the source of funds being BACS’d/ TT’d/CHAPS’d to their own accounts” and “Do the lawyers acting for the purchasers receive the funds direct into their client accounts from overseas”?.
If the purchasers are corporate structures, detailed checks are required nonetheless – UN sanctions lists ( including corporate and individuals) , politically exposed lists, those with known terrorist links etc etc etc.
Why not enforce a list of these transactions be made publicly available where the Banks and Lawyers AML requirements are NOT met and why…..
I refuse to believe that these AML regs. which plague some small scale financial transactions do not catch some of these dubious entities buying up, eg, London “desresland”; equally I marvel at the extent to which they are, apparently, circumvented…..
We used to think it was naughty, as well.
Climate Aid. Noun. Device to transfer money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Oh, you cynic (with respect ….)!
The same with Black lives matter and the slavery reparations. All skimming the public for spurious reasons.
Even though Britain abolished slavery and did much to stop the slave trade, I’ll consider coughing up to the victims of the Asante empire when I get my reparations from Rome, Saxony and Normandie etc.
As Obama once told us: Get to the back of the queue
Watch this space. I wonder who got some of the UK £400Billion Covid response? I could suggest where to start looking, but of course until it is done there is no proof. Our police in London, simple investigation, never!
‘Staff at PNG’s Climate Change and Development Authority have been accused of corruption and misappropriation of public funds‘
Well, anyone concerned with ‘Climate Change’ is, by definition, misappropriating public funds, so either defund them or lock ’em up, preferably both.
Only $2 million? They can’t even skim competently.
Indeed, amateurs … from what I am told in South Africa it would have been 200% pilfered.
Nothing to see here when the whole kit and kaboodle is one great big slushfund. Move along folks.
You guys read my mind.
More money should be spent on studies….like the one that determined that 570ppm of CO2 resulted in 67% more poison ivy growth….Oh he horror! And, didya’ know that more CO2 plant growth results in less nutritious plants and less grasshoppers?…..and also know that the Antarctic peninsula is warming 5 times faster than the whole planet???? Money talks.
There is corruption in the Third World? I am shocked.
There’s corruption in the First World … I’m even less shocked 😉
These climate change models have magical predictive abilities.
Perhaps a model could be modified to find the missing money.
In other news dog bites man!
One has to wonder; if the global political and corporate elites were stripped of all the wealth they’ve stolen and plundered from their constituents and customers, what percentage of the accrued government debt could it pay off? M. Guillotine hopes to start an inquiry!
And the criminal climate refuses to change once again.
This is a good first step but much more needs to be done. Yes it’s true that the people in Papua New Guinea misused the money and did what they apparently said they wouldn’t. The real culprits here are the people who gave the money with the promise that they were going to save us all from catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. It is bad enough that people are stupid enough to give money to organizations or governments promising such things but it is criminal that they piss the money away with no concern about whether or not it is being spent judiciously. These are the people that belong in jail.
I think they have figured out that jailing grumpy old curmudgeons like us, will work out cheaper.
SHUT UP! They explained.
PNG politicians have a L.O.N.G record of corruption.
These Climate Change grifters will have forgotten the 10% for the Big Guy.
That will be the problem.
Why should even impoverished PNG be different?
Works fine here in the UK.
Sir Reginald Sheffield, Samantha Cameron’s dad, was trousering a thousand pounds a day, rain hail snow or blow, over a decade ago (when £350,000 was real money), for eight modest turbines in a corner of his estate.
I do hope this pocket money has increased with more, bigger turbines, not to mention inflation. It would be a shame if he and Samantha and Dave Boy and others even further up the power tree had to pull their belts in.
What about that Lord Debben bloke !?
When I was a lad, my dad taught me that:-
Big fleas have little fleas, upon their backs, to bite ’em.
And little fleas have littler fleas, and so ad infinitum.
Apparently that now works in the opposite direction.
Every kWh of energy brought to shore to try to keep warm some pensioner in his high rise, will help our Beloved new King with the cost of keeping his palaces an mansions and castles warm and comfy.
And save the Planet into the bargain!
What’s not to like!