A New Zealand, company is urging other international businesses not to do business with Papua New Guinea without being paid up front. Wellington based company Evaluation Consult said this after PNG Government failed to pay the company $600,000 (K1.21 million). Last year, company won its court case in PNG to recover the debt. However, despite pressure from New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade officials, Minister Murray McCully, PNG’s own High Commissioner to New Zealand, and others, the Government has ignored the ruling. Evaluation Consult directors Kate Averill and Brian Rumbelow have heard of other New Zealand and Australian businesses which are owed millions of dollars. "As far as we know, no one else has taken the matter through the PNG legal system. This was an expensive process and the only result has been to learn the PNG Government does not honour its debts or comply with its own law," they said in a statement this week. In 2014 Evaluation Consult was invited by the Government to support the development of a national strategic sustainable development plan. "It was a farsighted initiative and important for the future of the country. The project involved working with all 35 sectors of government from forestry and fisheries through to mining and manufacturing. Ironically, it also included the law, order and justice sectors. Together, with PNG officials and ministers we developed a draft framework for sustainable development." They said that in December 2014, four months after the Government stopped paying their invoices, they left the project but continue to support the country through NGO work. The Government refuted the Evaluation Consult claim yesterday. National Planning secretary Hakaua Harry said the Government had never defaulted on any international obligations and will stand by this reputation. "The Department of Planning is aware of an arbitration decision against it for a claim by Evaluation Consult New Zealand. This relates to an engagement supporting the collection of data to review the Medium Term Development Plan 2010-15," Ms Harry said in a statement. "At no time was Evaluation Consult involved in the development of the Strategy for Responsible Sustainable Development which had been developed by Papua New Guinean citizens and launched long before the engagement of Evaluation Consult. "The Department maintains that while it had engaged the organisation in question, the department had paid all its obligations under the signed contract in full. She said the Department of Planning and Monitoring has been litigating and clearing many outstanding cases saving millions of kina, and is processing this matter as well. She said there is no intention to ignore the matter. Source: Scoop/PNGFACTS
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