Kina Securities Admits Rimbunan Hijau Ownership!

Last month Masalai revealed that leading finance company, Kina Securities Limited, is secretly owned and operated by Rimbunan Hijau – the notorious Malaysian company responsible for illegal and unsustainable logging and human rights abuses across PNG.

In an effort to remove itself from our spotlight, Kina has been telling the business community that the company is owned not by Rimbunan Hijau but by a Madam Ho Lay Puay of Hong Kong. What Kina have not revealed is that Madam Ho is a key part of the Tiong family that own Rimbunan Hijau!

In this issue we also disclose how Kina Securities is unlawfully operating its huge superannuation business without a licence and in doing so, has defrauded the Nation of millions of kina in operating and licensing fees.

Illegal Superannuation operations

Not only has Kina Securities published false information in its Annual Reports, lied to the Registrar of Companies and hidden its true identity behind a deceitful web of concocted foreign companies, it has been illegally operating its lucrative superannuation business.

All financial businesses in PNG must be registered with the Bank of Papua New Guinea and hold a licence for each type of work that they do. These are statutory requirements and should be vigorously policed. Yet Kina has been able to operate its superannuation business in PNG for more than THREE YEARS without the appropriate approval and licence.

By operating its superannuation business illegally and without a licence, Kina Securities has avoided paying millions of kina in licence and operating fees, defrauding both the Government of PNG and its people of much needed revenue and giving Kina Securities an unfair advantage over competing financial businesses.

The truth is inadvertently revealed

Just days after Masalai released its original investigation, Kina Chief Executive Syd Yates flew from Port Moresby to Singapore to meet with Kina Director, Ik King Tiong, brother of Rimbunan Hijau’s founder Hiew King Tiong. A strategy was devised in which Kina Securities would not speak publicly on the embarrassing revelations; issue a series of defamation threats to try and stop any proper investigation; and seek to privately reassure clients through a series of further misleading statements and falsehoods. On returning to Moresby, Kina Securities instructed its lawyers, who also act for Rimbunan Hijau, to serve a series of defamation threats on individuals who were legitimately asking awkward questions. Kina then sent out a series of explanatory letters to concerned organisations including the Public Officers Superannuation Fund, The Institute of Directors and Transparency International. In these letters it was denied that Kina had anything to do with Rimbunan Hijau and it was claimed that, as a result of a recent ‘restructuring’, it was 94.5% owned by the Liberian registered Flensberg Incorporated (with Wayne Golding still retaining a minority 5.5% stake). In the last Masalai we revealed that there is no company called Flensberg registered in Liberia and that it is entirely fictitious.

© Scoop Media