Advertisement A multinational company that secured a $121 million contract to support asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea boosted its profits by billing the Australian government $75 an hour for local workers it paid just $8. One former local worker described the practice as âlike stealingâ from PNG nationals and the Australian taxpayer. Refugees on Nauru in 2018. Credit:AP Company records show that Spanish-owned Applus Wokman, which in 2017 won the contract to provide case management and resettlement support for hundreds of asylum seekers, paid local workers as little as 10 per cent of the wages it claimed from the Department of Home Affairs. The revelation, along with the huge profits made by Brisbane-based company Canstruct for running Nauruâs asylum-seeker processing centre, raise fresh questions about the cost and accountability of Australiaâs outsourcing of offshore processing to private companies.