Take my people with you: PM

By PETER ESILA
PRIME Minister James Marape says the lessons of Panguna, Misima, and even Porgera remind the nation of the downside of the mining industry.
While opening the Papua New Guinea Resources Week at the University of PNG in Port Moresby, Marape said all landowners wanted was to benefit from their own resource.
“And if the landowners want something more, let us not leave anyone behind,” he said. Marape said he had just returned from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, a region which experienced 10 years of conflict as a result of mining activity.
“Four Cabinet Ministers stepped into the Panguna pit over the weekend – that reminds us of the downside in the industry.
“Take my people with you, is what I want to leave with you, the industry.
“We can do well if we learn from the lessons of the past. It teaches us on going forward. Legacy is not the convenience of today, but what you pass on.
“We were only 14 years old when the Bougainville crisis came. It was caused by a mining project in our country that is the downside in our industry whether in the mining or petroleum space.
“The landowners at that time just wanted a little bit more, two per cent more of what they were getting,” Marape said.
“Mining and oil and gas is time bound, once it is done, the company packs up and goes. Conversations on local content and local community participation is very important.
“From ordinary recipients of royalties and equities to actually owners of businesses in project.
“I appeal to big companies, we have ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Metalurgical Group Corporation (MCC) Ramu Nico, Santos and others, the real legacy is not the royalty and equity but picking up the landowners and giving him the business, buying vegetables from them, outsourcing security, logistics and others.Let us lift the scale, we are flagged as resource rich but are an under-developed country.
“It is about conversations on taking back PNG and not leaving our people behind. Whether it is exploration, development stage, please take my people with you.”
He urged Papua New Guineans to not be lazy but be business minded.
“People also must not be lazy, be engaged and take on the wheel,” he said.