Page 654 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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He has used the phrase "the facts" quite freely, so let us examine the facts. Regardless of what VITAB tells ACTTAB or the Minister, official company documents lodged with the Vanuatu authorities show categorically that the directors were and are Kolomanski, McMahon and Oak Ltd. As I said, Madam Speaker, they still are. Earlier I tabled the official company documents, not some faxed letter that happened to come in today. In fact, we understand, Mr Berry, that a major accountancy firm in Port Vila which was actually asked to check the VITAB company structure last week went down to the company office earlier this week. On checking the company's records, guess what they showed? They showed that the directors were Kolomanski, McMahon and Oak Ltd.
This shows that Mr Berry was willing to take the advice of VITAB alone but ignore the results of the Price Waterhouse search that he himself requested - a search that he said today in his speech he became aware of in February this year. It shows that he knew that Oak Ltd was a director when he answered questions in the first week of March. His own document, his own speech today, says that he knew in February that Oak was a director; yet in March he said, "I am just going to go away and check on that and I will get back to you", even though today he said that he knew in February. I do not know what we can believe. He confirmed in this Assembly time and time again, after repeated questioning, that the directors were Kolomanski, McMahon and Dowd. There was nothing about Oak Ltd. It certainly shows that he was willing to mislead this Assembly as to who the directors were at the time of signing or even who the directors are today.
It is interesting that notes of the alleged meeting of VITAB's directors held on 10 October in Victoria were faxed to Mr Berry only today. They are not on official letterhead, and any changes have not been registered more than six months after they allegedly occurred. What this dubious record shows is that what this meeting of two people did was to appoint Mr Dowd. Let us just have a look at the document. It says:
It was resolved that Michael John Dowd is hereby appointed a Director of Vitab Limited.
Mr Berry: And what else did it say? It also said, "And we will do a deal with ACTTAB".
MRS CARNELL: We are talking about only the directors at this stage.
Mr Berry: We do not want to talk about the company deciding to do the deal with ACTTAB.
MRS CARNELL: No. We do. We are talking about directors. It is really important to run through this systematically. The document says:
It was resolved that Michael John Dowd is hereby appointed a Director of Vitab Limited.
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