Allegations rife in AVL

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Airports Vanuatu Limited (AVL), Alain Lew, has called into question activities by some people under the current caretaker Minister of Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Don Ken, to dismiss the Board of AVL.

He alleged that one “person behind this is Mark Stafford, a previous AVL Board member.”

When contacted, Mark Stafford said he could not comment in the media on an ongoing matter.

But he questioned Alain Lew’s representation in the Board of AVL.

Mr Stafford said that in the Articles of Association of AVL, Alain Lew, does not represent any of the five organizations mentioned that can have representation in the AVL Board.

But Caretaker Minister of Finance and Economic Manager Willie Jimmy has said he approved Lew’s membership with documents clearly showing that he represented the Chamber of Commerce.

However, Stafford insists Mr Lew does not represent the Chamber of Commerce.

The Daily Post has been told by the VCCI that it does not have a representative on the board per se. The organisation nominates an individual to the Minister responsible, but the nomination is not binding.

The newspaper has seen correspondence to the Finance Minister from VCCI, noting its lack of representation on the AVL board and recommending that Adrian Sinclair be appointed as VCCI representative.

Lew said that the Board of the AVL under his chairmanship was reinstated after winning the Court of Appeal Civil Appeal Case No. 46 of 2014 against its termination.

Following this, on September 11 the two shareholders of AVL, Tony Nari, the Minister of Infrastructure and Public Utilities (MIPU) and Willie Jimmy, Minister of Finance and Economic Management (MFEM) met and resolved to reinstate the Board led by Mr Lew.

This was evident in the minutes of the meeting that was signed by both ministers.

Lew also alleged that on October 28, 2015 a “similar minutes format was made of an alleged general meeting between the two shareholders, the MIPU and MFEM, which the MFEM Jimmy insisted he never attended and as a result he did not sign the alleged minutes.”

The particulars of this Minutes indicated that the Minister of Finance was present at the meeting.

“Honestly, I was never present in such a meeting,” caretaker Minister Jimmy confirmed to the Daily Post.

In a letter addressed to Stafford dated November 2, 2015 Minister Jimmy said “Mark I totally disagree and deplore your action to have the Minister Don Ken sign the Minutes of Members. I had in my diary the discussions we had in my office sometime last week in which you presented me the minutes prepared in advance which I refused to sign and asked you to go and talk to Don Ken to organize a joint meeting of both of us to be present.”

He added in the letter “I am surprised that the same minutes I refused to sign is now being circulated to other ministries with other shareholders’ signatures in it.”

Minister Jimmy asked him to clarify, to which Mark Stafford responded saying “I apologize if there is any misunderstanding with respect to the discussions held with you regarding Airports Vanuatu Ltd (AVL).”

But Jimmy has replied that there was no misunderstanding on his part, because he was not at the meeting referred to in the minutes.

In that particular minutes, the names of new directors listed were: Letlet August, Mark Stafford, Pascal Gavotto and Andrew Kausiama.

However, two days later on October 30, another Minutes purported to be attended by the two shareholders, which Jimmy denied attending, was signed by Minister Don Ken.

Daily Post contacted Caretaker Minister Don Ken by phone and asked about his signature on the Minutes but he gave no response.

This Minutes listed new directors as Letlet August, Mark Stafford, Pascal Gavotto, Ronald Joseph, and Adrian Sinclair. Andrew Kausiama is not in this particular list.

On the same day too, October 30, 2015 a letter signed by Mark Stafford as Director on behalf of the Board went to Willie Watson, the Acting CEO of AVL notifying him “to stand down with immediate effect.”

The letter stated too that a meeting of the “Members of the Airports Vanuatu Limited resolved that he and other purported directors vacate their offices and resolved to appoint the following as Directors of AVL: Letlet August, Mark Stafford, Pascal Gavotto, Ronald Joseph, Adrian Sinclair and Keithson Liu.”

“My question is when we (his Board) were legally re-instated by the courts and the shareholders, we were not allowed into the office and we were prevented from using the office letter head,” Mr Lew asked.

“But Mark Stafford was able to get access to office letterheads for his letter to the Acting CEO,” he continued.

The matter did not stop there. On November 25, 2015, Alain Lew received a letter, which he alleged was written by Mark Stafford, signed by only one shareholder, Infrastructure and Public Utilities Minister Don Ken, with the heading ‘Termination of AVL Board’ and giving 11 reasons for the termination.

“I am ignoring the letter because it was not a resolution of the two shareholders,” Lew continued.

The AVL Chairman claimed that Stafford wants to get back into the AVL Board because he was “reaping about a million vatu for unsubstantiated costs every month for Barrett and Partners (B&P)”, the company he co-owns, from AVL.

Documents received by Daily Post show that in December, 2014 B&P billed AVL Vt911,906. In January 2015 two bills were received – one for Vt1,029,741 and the other for Vt559,266 for a total of Vt1,589,005. In February, 2015 two bills also were received by AVL for payment. One for Vt864,844 and the other for Vt582,328. In March 2015, the number of bills increased to three – one for Vt505,069, the second for Vt309,038, and the third for Vt92,250.

All the bills stated in part “for professional assistance in relation to project management of AVL – World Bank Bauerfield Rehabilitation Project and general disbursements charges recovering printing, stationery, photocopies, telephone, emails, facsimilie and postage costs,” and were approved for payment by AVL Chairman Maxwell Maltok.

When asked to explain the bills, Stafford declined to answer, saying only that all work was done properly. He added that Mr Lew’s charges were unfounded and did not merit a response.

In addition to the bills, documents received by the Daily Post showed that there were two payments made by Airports Vanuatu Limited to Barrett and Partners – one for Vt1,678,951 and the other for Vt674,578. Both were made on June 5, 2015 with both checks received by Mark Stafford, whose name appeared on both payment documents.

“I don’t understand why B&P was billing AVL when AVL has an office where it is performing all its services and functions,” Lew questioned.

He said that since his reinstatement his Board has ceased payment of the bills.

AVL shareholder, Finance Minister Jimmy has also agreed with Lew’s concerns over the bills. In a letter to the chairman Mr Jimmy called the payments to Barrett and Partners “unnecessary expenditures”.

“As another Shareholder of the Company (AVL) I totally dis-agree (with) payments made for management services provided by Barrett and Partners,” Minister Jimmy stated in his letter.

“This is a direct conflict of interest that Mark Stafford being a Board member and Project Manager for AVL, management affairs of AVL must be conducted in AVL’s premises and not in any private office.”

He said he supported the Board’s action to take appropriate measures to “resolve this unnecessary wastage of expenditures as soon as practicable.”

Mr Jimmy said he had questions concerning the bills and Mark Stafford’s push to remove Alain Lew’s Board. He questioned why is Stafford pushing for two representatives of Barrett and Partners to be in the AVL Board with Adrian Sinclair another.

He questioned how can exorbitant costs be charged for administration work such as for emails and faxes when these are available at the AVL offices at Bauerfield.