Australian aid backed Manus refugee catering contract

A PNG company given an $82m refugee catering contract received support through Australian aid program to build its business.

Papua New Guinea PM Peter O'Neill, left, and former PNG judge Don Sawong.

A Papua New Guinean company given an $82 million contract to deliver refugee catering services on Manus Island received support through the Australian aid program to build the capacity of its business.

The Australian can reveal NKW Holdings Ltd, which charges Australian taxpayers nearly $1400 a day for every resident it feeds, received technical support from Australia’s Market Development Facility from December 2016.

The taxpayer-funded aid project helped the landowner company to improve its fruit and vegetable supply chain by building stronger relationships with local growers.

The project included the provision of trained agricultural support officers and the rollout of tailor-made crop management software.

NKW won the September 2018 contract to supply catering and resident services for 209 refugees without a competitive tender process, delivering a massive profit margin for the politically-connected company.

The Department of Home Affairs did not approach any other companies to tender for the $8.7m-a-month contract, which runs until June 30 this year.

One of the company’s directors is retired judge Don Sawong, who stood for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s People National Congress party in 2017 and was last year named as PNG’s next ambassador to China.

NKW CEO Marlen Brunskill told The Australian the company did not use its political connections to get $82m Home Affairs contract.

“We’ve never used Mr Sawong for any political favours nor has he ever offered to use his political contacts to gain a business advantage in our case,” he said.

NKW CEO Marlen Brunskill says PNG’s small economy means political connections are common.

Mr Brunskill said PNG’s small economy also meant such political connections were common.

“Almost everyone at our level of business has direct contact with the country’s political leaders. This does not mean we are aligned in one way or another,” he said.

Labor seized on the revelation of another non-competitive tender by the Department of Home Affairs, which has faced a barrage of unanswered questions over its $423 million Manus Island security contract with Paladin Solutions, which listed its Australian address as a Kangaroo Island beach shack.

“Another day and Peter Dutton has even more questions to answer over the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent delivering services in Australian-funded regional processing centres,” Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said.