Special Parliamentary Committee Chairman, MP Gary Juffa pictured speaking in Parliament

Special Parliamentary Committee Chairman, MP Gary Juffa. Credit: SPCPSR

The Special Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Reform has published a report that is scathing in its criticism of the PNG Forest Authority and the logging industry.

The Report finds that the very agency ‘entrusted with protecting one of our nation’s most valuable, yet finite resources, our forests is in a state of financial and legislative paralysis’.

“Weak legislative enforcement, possible systemic corruption, and a fundamental lack of will to prosecute offenders have effectively turned a vital natural resource into an illicit revenue stream for foreign interests".

The report has been presented to Parliament following a eight-month inquiry by the committee into the functioning of the Forest Authority and the termination of independent pre-shipping log export monitoring services.

The report describes an ‘alarming catalogue of dereliction of duty and wilful negligence’ has ‘not only risked the State hundreds of millions in potential revenue loss but could also facilitate the abuse of customary landowner rights and undermine the intent to transition to downstream processing’ of all forest logs.

The report accuses the PNGFA of ‘abusing its discretionary powers, often under political influences, to shield non-compliant logging companies from penalties and license cancellations’.

‘This corruption’, says the report, ‘is enabled by a legislative framework that concentrates undue approval authority in political hands’.

As a result, ‘a handful of City Slickers from Waigani and foreign logging companies continue to win, while landowners and the nation at large continue to lose’.

The failure by the PNG Forest Authority to ensure the continuation of independent log export monitoring beyond March 2024 created ‘a potential licence for theft’ and for foreign logging companies to operate ‘with absolute impunity’ says the report.

This ‘signals a return to the dark days of uncontrolled resource exploitation’ first uncovered in the ‘traumatic findings of the 1984 Barnett Commission of Inquiry’.

“The absence of independent monitoring primarily benefits a handful of foreign-owned entities engaged in calculated economic crime, operating with government agency-enforced impunity and the certainty that they face zero prosecution for forestry crimes”.

The report describes the potential economic benefits of the forestry sector as having been undermined for decades ‘by pervasive illegal logging, transfer pricing and under-declaration, practices which haemorrhage revenue away from the State and the people’.

The report concludes that ‘emergency surgery’ and ‘immediate and comprehensive change’ is needed starting with a ‘fundamental shift in political will, legislative courage, and the unwavering commitment to dismantle the structures that encourage corruption that seem to plague this vital sector’.

However, despite making a number of practical recommendations for action, the committee report does not address how the political and bureaucratic will to make the necessary changes can be summoned.

The committee report follows two public hearings conducted in May and August 2025 where the committee heard evidence from the PNG Forest Authority, the Department of Treasury, Customs Service, the Department of Finance and SGS PNG Ltd.

The committee has recommended that:

  1. independent pre-shipping log export monitoring should be immediately recommenced;
  2. A comprehensive forensic audit of all of exports over the last ten years at a minimum and action taken to recover lost revenues with criminal and civil action against the perpetrators
  3. Establishment of an inter agency taskforce to prosecute corruption and financial irregularities
  4. PNGFA, Customs and IRC to impose severe, punitive financial sanctions, including licence cancellations and asset forfeiture against companies with habitual non-compliance
  5. PNGFA to promptly resume public reporting of monthly log export data
  6. Independent review of all Forest Clearing Authority permits to see if genuine agriculture projects and other commitments have been honoured
  7. Immediate cancelation of the licences of logging companies that have failed to transition or invest in downstream processing as directed by the government
  8. Immediate independent review of all FCAs and Specials Agriculture Business Leases to confirm legitimate landowner consent