Papua New Guinea must be wary of miners' lies

By James Wanjik

THE MINERS are here for money to be made from resources of Papua New Guinea. They are not here on charitable mission. Where there is money there will be mines. Seeing is believing. No amount of lies and deceits of PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum will change that.

The PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum should keep out of landowner issues. No lies and deceits of Greg Anderson will be believed. Real landowners will tell Greg Anderson to explain who actually benefits from exploration. None other than mining companies. They benefit by selling geological information on PNG resources.

Look at Frieda example. It is over 40 years and the area is still under exploration. The landowners are the same though some of their forebears would have parted for life after.

On the Chamber’s website they boast of over 200 tenements. Majority of these are exploration licences and many are still awaiting consideration.

Mining tenements are not many. They number as the number of mines we have. These are mines which load people including landowners with problems money cannot buy or recompense. Nothing is more exemplary as the Ok Tedi mine’s environmental pollution of Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers System.

Now PNG is taken for a ride yet again by the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum. They do not want landowners stopping exploration companies making money on PNG resources. Here is vested interest hidden in lot of words.

When exploration leads to production then Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) will collect production levy from mining companies. MRA is unconstitutional. It is operating illegally. It was set up by outsiders including Greg Anderson. The MRA has no legal standing to process mineral tenements and to enforce them. This is another vested interest of Greg Anderson. Landowners must rock MRA to rock PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum.

The warning has been out. Landowners will push MRA out of PNG. Then mines will be lawless. There is no mandated regulator of mines. MRA is a counterfeit. It is the issue for the take.

Landowners have two options. Raise resource ownership and be stuck with MRA or remove MRA for landowners to move miners out of their land.

Politics of resource ownership and regulation will kill the mining industry. When it does PNG will suffer. MRA is the rot which must be removed now.