Yesterday, it was former Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, and the former head of India’s Ministry of Power, E.A.S Sarma, sounding the alarm on Adani’s track record and the Carmichael coal mega-mine’s viability:
“Adani Group’s track record on environmental management within the country [India] leaves a lot to be desired,” Mr Ramesh told Four Corners.
“And if it leaves a lot to be desired domestically, there’s no reason for me to believe that Adani would be a responsible environmental player globally.”
Mr Ramesh said it was almost beyond belief that the Australian Government would look to provide concessional loans and other taxpayer support to facilitate Adani Group’s coal mining project — because of the consequences for climate change of developing a giant new mine and opening an entire new coal basin.
“You’re giving a tax break to a project that is actually going to have adverse environmental consequences, which will have multiplying effects on weather patterns in the region, across the world. I find it bizarre,” he said.
…the former head of India’s Ministry of Power, E.A.S Sarma… said it would be risky for taxpayers to provide subsidies or support for the Carmichael mine.
“If I were a finance man in Australia, in the Government, I would not recommend [it],” he said.
“It’s a risky proposition — it’s actually a subsidy maze.
“You know, you are shifting taxpayers’ money into something which is not viable”…
Last night, ABC’s Four Corners revealed that Adani has set up secret tax havens so that it can avoid paying tax to Australians once the Carmichael project is up and running:
Adani Group has promised a $22 billion windfall in taxes and mining royalty payments for Australia over the life of the giant Carmichael coal mine it has been given approval to build in outback Queensland.
But experts say an opaque web of companies and trusts behind its Australian assets gives it ample opportunity to minimise the tax it pays.
“Absolutely, Adani has put in place multiple ways in which they can minimise the amount of tax they pay in Australia, and maximise the amount of profits if they choose in Caribbean tax havens,” Adam Walters, research director at the consultancy Energy and Resource Insights, told Four Corners…
It was previously thought that Atulya Resources, a Cayman Islands domiciled company controlled by members of the Adani family, was the ultimate holding company for Abbott Point, the expansion project, and the railway.
However, filings in Singapore by privately-owned Adani companies show that a company registered in another notorious tax haven, the British Virgin Islands, sits behind Atulya Resources…
Investigating officers from India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence accused Vinod Adani, along with ex-Adani Group employees and Adani companies, of executing a “planned conspiracy of siphoning off foreign exchange abroad … and Trade Based Money Laundering”…
Vinod Adani is the sole director of a number of Singapore-registered companies that control the Australian rail and port assets and are in turn owned first in the Cayman Islands and then in the British Virgin Islands…
“I think there’s a national security issue here,” energy finance analyst Tim Buckley, a long-time critic of the Carmichael mine, said.
“[Abbott Point] one of our biggest ports, it’s owned in this opaque structure through multiple tax havens,” he said.
“The sole director in Singapore is Vinod Shah and Vinod Shah is under multiple corruption and tax fraud inquiries by the Indian Government, and yet here we are with the port, one of the biggest ports in Australia controlled by Vinod Shah”…
One [specialist tax lawyer] suggested the prospect of the project paying $22 billion in taxes and royalties was somewhere between “Buckley’s and none”.
Australia must withdraw its $1 billion concessional loan pronto and tell Adani that if it wants the Carmichael mine, then it must fund it entirely itself and bear the risk, as well as pay the correct amount of royalties and taxes.
