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<\/p>\nSonk claimed the letter had been \u201cconfirmed\u201d by Pollock \u201cto be fake in its entirety\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe letter contains a forged electronic signature not belonging to Mr Pollok [sic] and does not bear the official KPHL letterhead containing the watermark and logo, which contains contact details, office address and other information,\u201d he said. \u201cVery importantly, the letter wasn\u2019t under my name as the managing director.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pollock did not deny writing and sending the letter of demand when contacted last week, saying he had in fact \u201cretracted\u201d it when he \u201csaw the error of my ways\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told this masthead he had discussed the letter with Sonk, who he said had warned him about conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n
Pollock said Sonk had not mentioned that he owned the company to which the Chinese group was instructed to channel engineering, procurement and construction work in the letter.<\/p>\n
Pollock replied with an emoji of an angry red face swearing when sent a document demonstrating Sonk\u2019s shareholding in that company, PNG Developments Pty Ltd.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The house in Brisbane that the owner says is tenanted to Wapu Sonk.Credit: <\/p>\n
This masthead does not suggest Sonk directed Pollock to send the letter to the Chinese firm, only that the circumstances warrant further scrutiny because of Sonk\u2019s ownership of PNG Developments.<\/p>\n
There is also no evidence that the two firms privately owned by Sonk or Pollock ever received any funds or contracts from the Chinese company.<\/p>\n
Marape has asked Sonk for a written explanation and demanded a preliminary report by Wednesday, saying it was in PNG\u2019s national interest for the matter to be \u201cresolved quickly, clearly and professionally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeking information to affirm the veracity or correctness of the allegations to decide what course of action to pursue,\u201d Marape said on Tuesday. \u201cUpon Mr Sonk\u2019s return to [the] country I will personally hand-deliver a letter asking him to officially declare his responses in relation to all allegations as entailed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In his statement, Sonk also did not address questions about his use of a Brisbane property whose owner has been awarded lucrative contracts by Kumul Petroleum. It was not suggested that the property access was provided as an inducement to Sonk, or that Sonk has sought one.<\/p>\n
He said unnamed people were trying to discredit him and Kumul Petroleum, as well as PNG\u2019s historic admission to the NRL in 2028, which the Albanese government is bankrolling to counter Chinese security ambitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese individuals have vested interests whom have generated this fabricated letter using information from within the company,\u201d Sonk said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are people who are seeking to discredit the milestone achievement of fulfilling PNG\u2019s long-held dream of having an NRL team under this government in partnership with the Australian government. They also seek to discredit our work to build a strong national oil and energy company for Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will ensure my name is cleared \u2026 [and] will not allow these individuals to undermine the progressive work we are carrying out with international oil and gas companies in Papua New Guinea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pushed for the NRL to expand to PNG and agreed to pay for it and the code\u2019s Pacific strategy to fend off Beijing\u2019s attempts to increase its footprint in the region.<\/p>\n
The Australian government has committed $600 million over 10 years towards its signature sports diplomacy initiative, with $290 million to go towards the establishment and running of the PNG NRL team, $250 million to be spent on rugby league development in the Pacific and $60 million to be split between existing NRL clubs as a licence fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sonk claimed the letter had been \u201cconfirmed\u201d by Pollock \u201cto be fake in its entirety\u201d. \u201cThe letter contains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-12848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}