PNG: Row brewing over Bougainville mining rights
Updated
Papua New Guinea's government says it wants a fair share of the ownership of minerals on PNG's autonomous region of Bougainville. Thousands of lives were lost in a civil war led by secessionist rebels over mining and environmental pollution by the once giant Bougainville Copper mine.
Presenter: Firmin Nanol
Speakers: Doctor Puka Temu, PNG's Mining minister
NANOL: PNG's mining minister, Dr Puka Temu says the government will transfer the mining functions and powers to the Bougainville government soon. He says a technical committee has been setup to help Bougainville develop its valuable mining, oil and gas reserves.
TEMU: The process has now begun for the autonomous Bougainville government and the national government to proceed towards going down the path in a phased approach for capacity building, training, while we are using the laws of Papua New Guinea on mining gas and oil. So that has been agreed upon.
NANOL: But President Joseph Kabui says Bougainville does not want the PNG government to have any say or ownership over mining on the island. He told the Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare and Dr Temu during a recent meeting on Bougainville, that ownership must remain with the people of Bougainville.
PNG's Mining Minister Dr Temu says PNG law guarantees the government rights over minerals on the land. He says development laws over ownership of resources will be applied so PNG shares rights over minerals on Bougainville.
TEMU: The issue of ownership was discussed and we agreed in the memorandum of understanding that we will now establish a technical committee to look at all the relevant laws of Papua New Guinea related to ownership of resources and then in the next meeting, which will be the end of this quarter, hopefully March, will be to address the issue of ownership. Under the law at the moment the state owns all the resources below the land. And so what we will need to do is to look at how we can then go to the autonomous Bougainville government, which has also already agreed that in the absence of laws from the autonomous Bougainville government, the national laws will continue to take effect.
NANOL: He says the benefits should be shared equally amongst the government, the autonomous Bougainville government, developers and landowners.
TEMU: State should remain owner of all resources but in sharing the cake it's important that provincial government and resource owners have a bigger share of the proceeds that come out in terms of the tax arranged collection, royalties and all those things. So it's something that we believe that bigger benefits should go to the people. That's an issue that we can negotiate successfully.
NANOL: The PNG government is yet to lift the moratorium on mining on the island which has been in place since the 1990s. Mining Minister Dr Puka Temu says he will push for the government to lift the ban after the mining powers have been transferred.
TEMU: We need to now make a collective decision and I will be advising the national … council on the lifting of full or partial lifting of the moratorium on mining on Bougainville. So those are the issues that we have agreed that in a … we need from July 2008, all those processes will begin, but as you and I know the biggest challenge is we don't have capacity on the island.
NANOL: The Bougainville joint report, which is made up of senior government ministers responsible for Bougainville and autonomous government will meet in March to try to resolve the issue. The mining powers are expected to be officially transferred to Bougainville towards the middle of this year. Firmin Nanol, Port Moresby.
