Former ALP fund-raiser Charles Wright had been proposed as a founding major shareholder of the holding company of Vitab in July 1993, according to a letter to the ACTTAB at the time obtained yesterday. This is contrary to government efforts to dissociate Vitab and Mr Wright. Last year, Mr Wright’s appointment as ACT Tourism Commissioner was attacked by the Opposition because he had been named in the WA Inc Royal Commission report as having passed $80,000 in raised funds to the secretary of former WA Premier Brian Burke and because he had been a director of a company that had gone broke leaving staff unpaid.
When the Vitab affair started to come under fire, informed sources say that Mr Wright was asked to take a back seat and not have a formal role because of the earlier bad publicity surrounding him.
The Vanuatu-based Vitab signed an agreement with ACTTAB last year under which it would get access to the ACT betting pool which in turn was pooled with Victoria. It resulted in Victoria pulling the pin on the ACT, sending ACT dividends into chaos
Earlier this year, the ACT Government side-stepped an Opposition request to table any documents relating to Mr Wright and Vitab, the Vanuatu-based betting company that had an ill-fated contract with ACTTAB that has cost taxpayers more than $3.5 million.
The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said Mr Wright had not been registered as a director or shareholder of Vitab when asked in August this year to table any documents in relation to any proposed appointment of Mr Wright as director or shareholder.
However, a letter, obtained by The Canberra Times, sent from Vitab principal Dan Kolomanski in July last year to the then chief executive of ACTTAB, Philip Neck, said a company called Gaming Management International Pty Ltd would be set up as a holding company for Vitab.
It would have four “”founding and major shareholders”. They would be former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Charles Wright, Dan Kolomanski and Con McMahon.
That structure did not go ahead and GMI remains a shelf company. Instead, Vitab Ltd of Vanuatu became the business vehicle. Vanuatu law does not permit detailed company searching as in Australia. However, a document obtained by The Canberra Times dated March 1994, a month before the Vitab showdown resulted in the forced resignation of the Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, shows that the 1000 shares in
Vitab Ltd were held as follows: Hawke family trust company Tate Australia 110 shares; Hong Kong businessman Sunny Yam’s company 50; a Vanuatu racing company 200 shares; Kolomanski interest 109 shares; Gideon investment 24; and McMahon interests and an employees’ trustee 507 shares.
The annual report of ACTTAB tabled yesterday shows that the Vitab affair had turned what would have been a $165,920 profit into a loss of $3,184,118. Paying out Vitab cost $3.3 million and legal costs were $151,000.
At the time Ms Follett defended Mr Wright’s appointment to the Tourism Commission because of his business skills and Mr Berry defended the Vitab deal as “”a good deal for the ACT”.
Mr Wright has since resigned the $12,480 position to take up a job with the NSW RSPCA.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tony De Domenico, said yesterday that on last year’s profit performance, the Vitab costs would take 20 years to repay.
Last week the Auditor-General reported that it was unlikely ACTTAB would be able to meet its commitment to repay the ACT Government the amount it borrowed to settle the Vitab contract.
In short, without taxpayer support, Vitab has sent ACTTAB broke.