PNG TELECOM SUBSIDIARY ‘MOBILE B’ UP FOR SALE
Potential buyers jockey for position

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, April 7, 2008) - B Mobile is up for grabs as a major international group tries to get a share of the ownership of the government-owned phone company.

Calls are going on between Hong Kong, New Zealand, Africa and Papua New Guinea as negotiations move closer to a deal, informed sources told the Post-Courier at the weekend.

An African telecommunications adviser flew into Port Moresby on Saturday and left Jacksons airport with government officials. Negotiations are involving the major telecommunications company, Econet, which had its financial fingers burned in a previous attempt to set up business in PNG, plus the Kissinger-aligned company, GEMS (General Enterprises Management Limited).

GEMS alone manages funds totaling billions of kina around the Pacific and Asia region. It is a private equity management group, which bankrolls investment in many areas.

Sources close to the foreign companies and within PNG all confirmed that negotiators are talking about the possibility of a buyout of B Mobile, the wholly owned subsidiary of Telikom PNG Ltd, or a share in the ownership.

Talks are believed to involve advisers to the government company which controls most of the state-owned enterprises, the Independent Public Business Corporation. This comes under the political control of State Enterprises Minister Arthur Somare.

Last week in Parliament the Government blocked a series of questions from the Opposition about allegations of a deal to sell B Mobile. Outside Parliament, Mr. Somare made a statement that did not kill off speculation about the fate of B Mobile. He said the National Executive Council had directed the IPBC and his ministry to look at "all options in relation to transformation of Telikom for it to participate eventually in an open market environment’’ before March 29 next year.

"As for the question of whether B Mobile is for sale, that question is being answered through this process that both IPBC and the ministry is looking at right now."

GEMS, the company with formerly one of the world’s most powerful men on its board, Dr. Henry Kissinger, recently tried to buy 55 per cent of the third authorized mobile license holder, Indonesian-PNG company, GreenCom.

The Post-Courier has been told that the talks lapsed when the ICCC (Independent Consumer and Competition Commission) boss Thomas Abe asked if GEMS was involved with Econet. GEMS reportedly found difficulty in answering Mr. Abe’s request and GreenCom withdrew from negotiations.

Later GEMS with Econet (a company of African and New Zealand connections) began negotiating with the PNG Government for part or complete buyout of B Mobile.

On Saturday, an African official of the GEMS-Econet syndicate flew into Port Moresby to be met by a government officer and whisked away.

Kissinger, 84, was the Secretary of State in the US Government under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford for nearly four years in the 1970s. He is a member of GEMS Funds Advisory Council, along with a former foreign affairs adviser to two English prime ministers and other high-level political and financial leaders.

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