Pacific Business Brief: iComply collapse, PNG logging corruption allegations and Tuvalu's fuel reprieve

Damage in the shadow of a labour hire firm's collapse, a Papua New Guinea parliament committee investigates logging exports, and Tuvalu ends its state of emergency over fuel supplies.

Here are the weekly highlights in the Pacific economy.

In this edition:

• Collapse of an Australian labour hire firm
• PNG logging corruption allegations
• Tuvalu ends state of emergency amid global fuel shock

'Bonded labour': The iComply saga

The controversial Australian labour hire firm iComply went into liquidation in January, owing an estimated AU$12.2 million, including approximately AU$4m owed to former employees.

An ABC report from mid-April featured interviews with workers who, four months after iComply's collapse, and despite assurances, had not been fully compensated.

Raghwan, an Australia-based coordinator for the Pacific Islands Council of Trade Unions, told RNZ Pacific it reflected the power structure that migrant workers find themselves under with the labour hire firm itself.

"If they complain, or if they are not happy, the employer doesn't like them, they have no other way to go to another company, they have to go back," he said.

"This is a sort of bonded labour, where they don't have the freedom to go to another employer - so many of them have kept quiet."

Labour hire firms essentially act as a middleman between the workers in their home countries and the employers, helping arrange travel or offsite accommodation, visa issues, and most importantly, paying wages.

However, despite oftentimes holding the employment contracts for the migrant workers, they are paid by the employers, akin to a property manager engaged by a landlord.

Raghwan said the oversight is completely lacking in Australia, allowing for cases like the iComply saga to happen.

"Both the sending country and receiving country need to make sure that these (firms) are registered and have a good background check-up," he said.

"This organisation had been in trouble from 2023, so why didn't the Ministry check on that, why didn't the tax department check on that, why didn't the superannuation fund check on that? These things should have happened a long time ago."

The Vanuatu Ministry of Internal Affairs stated in January that iComply did not have any Ni-Vanuatu workers engaged under the PALM Scheme.

It said they, along with the Australian government in December 2025, had made sure all of iComply's workers were transferred to new PALM employers.

RNZ Pacific understands iComply did not operate in New Zealand.

'Possible systemic corruption' in PNG timber exports

A parliamentary select committee has alleged that Papua New Guinea went without log export monitoring for nearly two years.

The committee's report covered a period of 23 months - from March 2024 to February 2026 - after an arrangement between the PNG government an independent monitorers SGS PNG Ltd had fallen apart.

This led to what the report calls "a systemic collapse of national revenue protection mechanisms", where the government had no way of ensuring the right amount of revenue was being collected, or checking for anything untoward happening in the actual shipments.

"The persistent issues are rooted in weak legislative enforcement, possible systemic corruption, and a fundamental lack of political and bureaucratic will to prosecute offenders, effectively turning a vital natural resource into an illicit revenue stream for foreign interests."

The report went further, claiming that over 30 years of SGS being contracted to monitor logging exports, there has never been a single prosecution for any forestry-related offences, which gave foreign operators "absolute impunity".

"This profound failure of enforcement by all responsible state agencies has resulted in not a single prosecution against companies engaged in possible tax evasion, misdeclaration, and illicit activities," the report read.

After this report was tabled in parliament, PNG found itself on the Financial Action Task Force's grey-list, which ultimately came down to a structural inability for PNG to root out and deal with financial crime throughout the economy.

Pacific fuel shortage continues

Tuvalu has ended a two-week long state of emergency over fuel supplies, with Energy Minister Simon Kofe saying the situation is now stable and under control.

He said electricity supply has improved, thanks to fuel storage repairs from Australia and technical generator assistance from Japan. Tuvalu will also rent a new generator from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in late May.

Kofe said Tuvalu has enough fuel supply, with another shipment due in mid May, for national needs and transport.

Two weeks ago he told RNZ Morning Report that the island nation had no guarantee of fuel supply beyond June.

But the announcement came before oil prices soared on Thursday to their highest level in four years, with US President Donald Trump warning their blockade on the Strait of Hormuz may last months.

It means that Tuvalu's sigh of relief may only last until the next bulk shipment is due.

Meanwhile, other Pacific Island countries are beginning to raise their prices at the pump to new heights.

Fiji's diesel price per litre has been increased by 32 percent on main roads on Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Samoa have increased diesel by around 46 percent.

Fuel imports as a percentage of GDP range between 5 to 10 percent for most - for Tuvalu it's around 25 percent.

A month ago, Zero Carbon Analytics warned Fiji's annual refined fuel import bill could rise by US$670m, a 115 percent increase from 2025 levels -a trend that could become near-universal throughout the region.