25 Feb 2014

PNG staff to be vetted amid camp management change

2:22 pm on 25 February 2014

The Australian company, Transfield Services, says it will be carefully vetting employees at Canberra's asylum seeker detention centre on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island when it takes over the centre's management next week.

The company will take over from G4S from March in a 20-month contract valued at more than 1.1 billion US dollars.

A Transfield spokesperson says the company is obliged to employ a certain percentage of Papua New Guineans although he wouldn't say what that percentage is.

But he says the company will be going through the list of employees and vetting people, including those alleged to be involved in clashes last week that left one asylum seeker dead, before any employment offers are made.