The Vanuatu Government has issued a three months’ termination notice to the country’s Trade Commissioner to Hong Kong.
Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Minister of Internal Affairs, Ishmael Kalsakau, signed the termination notice of Commissioner Jimmy Ng King Cheung on Tuesday this week.
Commissioner Jimmy was appointed to the position on 17th of October 2011 to provide Permanent Residency (PR) Visa programme on behalf of the Vanuatu Government in the Asian Countries, and the contract agreement is for a period of 10 years.
This means the contract will lapse in 2021.
The Daily Post reported that according to the contract agreement service, the commission is obliged to produce a report on the services of the programme and to make this available to the government on a monthly basis but the Vanuatu government has not been receiving monthly reports as per the agreement services.
“The expiry date of the original contract is the 16th of October 2021, which will be reviewed upon the agreement of the government and the commission but instead without valid substantial reasons the third and fourth supplementary agreement provide for an automatic renewal of the contract of 10 years, which was signed in 2014 and another supplementary is to provide for the renewal of the contract to 2023 signed in 2019," DPM Kalsakau stated in the letter.
The contract of service agreement will lapse next year, but it is difficult to understand the reasons to amend the period of the contract signed in 2014 which is six years before the contract lapses and further amend the period of 2019 which is two years before the contract lapses.
“It clearly shows conflict of interest on your side as you clearly knew there will be a change of government when the contract lapsed and you have used your influence as the sole authorized agent to engage in the automatic renewal of the contract on the supplementary agreements," Mr Kalsakau added.
The trade commission is also funding the immigration officer who is responsible for the PR program in Hong Kong under the agreement, through the office rents and other office utilities including the travelling costs and this is deem a clear conflict of interest as per section 4 of the contract service.
“Therefore, consequent to section 5 of the contract you are given 3 months’ notice to provide your response for the three months’ notice termination of contract services, once i received your written response I will decide to continue with the contract or terminate the contract immediately," the DPM stated.
Vanuatu’s establishment of a Trade Commission office in Hong Kong is a government initiative spearheaded by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission who made a breakthrough in establishing a commercial partnership arrangement with the Vanuatu International Companies Limited based in Hong Kong.
Since 2011 to date, thousands of Permanent Residency visas were given out.
The Vanuatu government receives VT300,000 per application.