Peter O’Neill has issued a rebuttal just 2 hours after Prime Minister James Marape's Facebook post this afternoon, 6pm, 16 July 2020;
The obsessive rant by Marape on his Facebook page about the Porgera mine crisis was childish, and not the level of mature debate that the country expects from anyone who wants to be a Prime Minister.
It is obvious Marape has no idea about resource development in PNG, and the complexityand mental aptitude that the negotiation process requires. The level of ownership he is proposing requires significant financing that has to be obtained from somewhere.
But Marape and his small group of cargo cult leaders have run out of options to raise affordable finance. The billions of dollars required for this proposed investment ownership would have to be borrowed at very high commercial rates.
That is why our Government decided not to take up a 30 per cent equity option in WafiGolpu, we agreed to 20 per cent and negotiated to have a 50 per cent increase in royalties. This level of return was over and above the legal requirements of the Mining Act, and inject significant cash returns into our communities and economy, not debt at had been the case for past projects.
Our agreement was so that Landowners and Provincial Governments could receive early monetary returns, which is something that no other project in the country was delivering.
The income share for PNG would have been 54 per cent to PNG from day one in the Wafi Golpu project. The Wafi Golpu MOU would achieve exceptional returns to PNG without saddling future generations with debt. It was a very strategic, well thought through, pro development, pro jobs and pro-PNG transaction. Sadly, the project remains stalled under Marape’s lack of leadership Marape might well praise the Morobe Governor and his advisors, but these were the very people demanding over 400 million Kina to market the project.
What they wanted was illegal, and in any case, why would PNG pay the Governor hundreds of millions of Kina to do the job of the project developer? These demands by the Morobe Governor, that Marape clearly supports, were just plain
stupidity and outright greed. It is this cargo cult, and selfish and corrupt attitude, that is killing investment in PNG.
So wake up to yourself Marape, start focusing your attention on the issues that are destroying our country, stop using the name of our religion to coverup your failures, and decide if are up to the job you claim is your right to hold.
Next : PNG Government must Negotiate Porgera Gold Mine Solution now : O'Neill