However, as the initial report is digested, speculation about the involvement of certain NuCoal senior executives has arisen.
According to an ABC News report – despite NuCoal saying that it was not implicated in the findings – NuCoal’s Mike Chester and Andrew Poole, both former directors of Doyles Creek Mining, have been found to be corrupt by ICAC.
The ABC report also mentioned the company’s current managing director Glen Lewis, referring to him as managing director and a founding shareholder of Doyles Creek Mining.
NuCoal spokesman Patrick Southam said Lewis was not a founding shareholder of Doyles Creek Mining.
According to Southam, in September 2008 he was employed by ResCo, a mining services company, where as part of his employment contract with ResCo, he was offered shares in Doyles Creek Mining. In September 2009, Lewis was appointed managing director of NuCoal before it was listed on the ASX in February 2010.
Southam said Lewis appeared as a witness in Operation Acacia, but no findings or recommendations were made against him in the ICAC report.
A transcript of the report shows that Commissioner David Ipp said: “There’s no suggestion that there will be any finding against Mr Lewis”
Following the release of the final two reports, the future of the project will be decided and Southam said the company wanted to be consulted before any decision was made.
“We urge them not to make any decisions that might affect the future of the Doyles Creek mine without speaking to the company,” Southam said.
ICAC was responding to allegations to the corruption watchdog that a proposed mine training school project at Doyles Creek was a pretext to gain approval by Macdonald.
The training school was proposed by former Construction, Forestry Mining and Energy union leader Maitland, who made a windfall profit of $15 million when the project was sold to NuCoal in February 2010.
To date, ICAC has found that former mining minister Ian Macdonald corruptly awarded the initial exploration licence to Maitland’s company, Doyles Creek Mining.
Following the release of the first of ICAC’s three Operation Acacia reports on August 30, NuCoal chairman Gordan Galt urged the government to allow the company to “pursue the development of the Doyles Creek Project based on the resource that NuCoal’s shareholders have discovered”
Since listing on the ASX in February 2010, NuCoal has spent more than $40 million on exploration activities, development studies and land acquisitions for the Doyles Creek project.
ICAC’s two further reports, expected by the end of 2013, will recommend action to the NSW government, with respect to EL 7270 [Doyles Creek]and any other issues arising from the hearing.
