O’Neill said Oil Search had a lot to answer for and other advisers “took advantage of our ignorance”.

He said the same characters were still around plundering the country's natural resources.

In a statement earlier this week, Marape called the UBS loan “a crime against our nation”.

“Over K3 billion of PNG LNG money was sucked into this bad deal engineered by former PM Peter O’Neill for the benefit of a few companies like UBS, Oil Search Ltd and PAC Energy – who picked up US$900 million (K3.1 billion) belonging to the people of PNG,” Marape said.

“We are engaged in the Commission of Inquiry to claim damages and restitution from those companies, as well as criminally prosecute individuals who knowingly participated in this crime.”

Marape said evidence presented to the inquiry implicated O’Neill and former Oil Search managing-director Peter Botten.

He said it is now clear that before O’Neill brought the USB loan submission to Cabinet in March 2014, Botten had already announced its details a week earlier.

“This is an example of scheming behind the scenes, and how Cabinet and government processes were hijacked to formalise the ‘robbery’ of over K3 billion,” he said.

But O'Neill remains unapologetic, saying he did what he thought was right for the country.

Responding to critics, including O’Neill, Marape said the Royal Commission is “not a waste of time and money”.

“This will not be another inquiry that collects dust, but will be processed to punish those involved and claim damages,” he said.

“I made a commitment to the nation, the moment I took office in May 2019, that fighting high-level corruption would be one of my government’s main priorities.

“PNG must not be used by crony capitalistic greed that sees lawyers, bankers, CEOs, consultants and politicians make money.

“This exercise, hopefully will put a stop to such abuses from recurring in the future as well as punishing those who caused this theft of our people’s money.”