Asylum seekers on Manus Island say the security contractor Paladin is “doing nothing” on the ground, questioning how the firm is spending money from its $423m deal with the Australian government.
The Australian government is continuing to face scrutiny for its decision to hand the contracts to run the Manus Island asylum and refugee centres to the contractor Paladin, through a non-competitive tender process.
Paladin had little experience in providing garrison and security services in immigration detention, but the home affairs department has said it was left with little choice but to hand it the contract because others were reluctant to be associated with the “noise” of its offshore detention regime.
Asylum seekers on Manus Island said they had long questioned what the Australian government was paying for, not just through its deal with Paladin, but with all its contractors.
The award-winning journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani, who is on Manus, said there were many locals working at the centre on low wages. He said Paladin’s staff did little more than check IDs and sit in camps by the front gate. Security incidents were typically dealt with by police, he said.
“What I am seeing on the ground is that Paladin, they ... are doing nothing,” he told Guardian Australia. “In Australia, people ask this question now. But this question for us is for years, not only for Paladin, but all of the companies. How do they spend this money? It is a question for us, not only Paladin, [but for health contractors] IHMS, PIH.
“All the companies they are doing nothing. Services they are not giving us.”
Reports have suggested Papua New Guinea’s parliamentary speaker and MP for Manus, Job Pomat, benefited from the deal through a family company – Peren Investment – which entered into an agreement with Paladin Solutions PNG for the provision of certain services.
But Pomat told Guardian Australia he had nothing to hide. Pomat said he was inviting all journalists to go to Manus and see first-hand documents and bank records he would make public regarding the allegations.
“Come, I have nothing to hide,” he said. “I don’t know the company dealings because I am not a company director.”
He said there was nothing wrong with landowners benefiting from projects on their land.
Pomat called on Paladin to come clean on the deal and not bring his name into disrepute over nothing.
“I want to call on Paladin to come out clear and tell me what kind of deal did I broker with them and my family members/company or landowner company?”
In response, Paladin said it was not in a position to comment on “any matters relating to our work on behalf of the Australian government in Papua New Guinea”.
“However, I encourage you to direct any further queries to the Department of Home Affairs,” the company said in a statement. “Paladin’s number one priority and focus as always is to ensure we provide a safe and secure environment for Residents.”
Late on Monday, the PNG government said it would raise concerns about Paladin with the Australian government. The immigration minister, Petrus Thomas, said the PNG government had no involvement in awarding the contract. But he confirmed the visa of one of Paladin’s directors had been cancelled for “not adhering” to the government’s preference for firms to use local labour.
“The award of contract to Paladin was done by the Australian government and PNG has no say,” Thomas said. “However, given concerns raised in the media about the directors of the company, the experience and track record of the company, PNG will raise its concerns through the Department of Home Affairs.
“I can confirm that the visa of one of the directors of the company was cancelled because of the company not adhering to the government’s position on recruitment of local labour by recruiting security personnel from overseas and not following the process in dealing with visa matters.”
The home affairs department has been criticised in the past for its handling of contracts for the offshore detention program. The auditor general said in a 2017 report that the management of the offshore contracts “has fallen well short of effective contract management practice”.
The home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo, said the government was in a difficult position. He said the “noise” around offshore detention made it difficult to find companies willing to work on the centres, and that the tender required a tight turnaround after PNG advised Canberra it would not be providing services as expected in July. Pezzullo said he would have preferred to use an open, 12-month tender with a global search, but that wasn’t possible.
“We were dealing with an urgent situation, but we were never desperate,” he said.
A similar process occurred when awarding work to another major offshore detention centre contractor, Canstruct, which won a $591m deal to run garrison and welfare services on Nauru.
One of Paladin’s subsidiaries until recently listed its business premises as a beach shack on Kangaroo Island.
An office in Singapore is registered to a company called Luther Corporate Services.
Home affairs officials on Monday said the amount paid to Paladin was comparable to previous contractors. It said had processes in place to satisfy itself that Paladin was fulfilling the requirements of the contract as expected.
