Rentals accumulated for years: Rosso

ACTING Prime Minister Hon John Rosso says the unpaid rentals were historical legacy issues that accumulated over many years.
Rosso said this when responding to a reporter’s question on the Government’s intention on the lock down of prime government buildings.
Rosso said the Finance and Treasury Ministers are now working to solve the issue.
He confirmed that the outstanding bills accumulated to over K100 million and the Government paid K53mil.
“From that K100mil that accumulated, we appropriated K53mil in the last two weeks in the concerned areas,” Rosso said.
Prime Minister James Marape also added that the Government is working on building new offices.
He said the buildings especially the IRC building (Revenue Haus) was once owned by the Government but was sold under the Mekere Government Privatisation Policy in 2001.
“Someone taught PNG would go away and sold the Revenue Haus building at that time for about K30mil and was leased again. Today, the rental prize for a year is about K12mil and we again paid about K200mil to a building that we originally owned,” the PM explained.
“We are reviving all these things as we’ve been paying over K300mil to landlords in the country and because some of the landlords are businesses, they are operating in a business manner so we understand this. We will pay the outstanding.”
He further stated that Government is now looking at a build-operate-transfer arrangement to manage State rentals.
The buildings were locked following issues with the landlord and the National Government.
Vulupindi Haus that housed the Treasury and Financial Departments had gone into lock down on Wednesday with chains tied to the main entrance doors by security guards as per instructions by the landlord, Nambawan Super Limited.