WITH the recent announcement by the management of the Ok Tedi Mining Ltd, to extend the mine’s life beyond 2032, North Fly MP and Vice Minister for Mining and Border Development James Donald, says heavy investments in agriculture is the way forward for the district if it has to survive after the mine’s closure.
“We must use both the direct and indirect benefits from Ok Tedi, such as investments proceeds from Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC), Mineral Resources Ok Tedi No 2 Ltd (MROT2), PNG Sustainable Development Program (SDP) and others, to attend to our development needs, and agriculture must be our major focus,” said Vice Minister for Mining and Border Development.
According to OTML Chief Executive and Managing Director Musje Werror said the amount of resource still in the ground could last beyond the 2040s, and even 2050s and therefore the company was looking at extending the mine’s life. At present, Ok Tedi is going through a process of transition whereby it is reinvesting in their processing facilities and re-fleeting the mine haul equipment for the next 10 years of the current mine life.
In light of this, Donald, is of the view that his people must now move away from the habit of dependency and easy handout mentality syndrome of the past and start thinking afresh about getting down to the agriculture business to become productive citizens both economically and socially, in order for them to enjoy quality of life.
“The 10 years remaining before Ok Tedi Mine’s closure by 2032 is not a joke for North Fly and Western Province as a whole. The question is how prepared or ready are we, to stand alone when the sole economic powerhouse in our District or Western Province for that matter, ceases operation in 10 years’ time?
“My dream, and I believe it is the answer is for North Fly District to go down the path in agriculture, taking up shovels and digging sticks and toil the land than wandering around in our little towns of Kiunga, Ningerum or Tabubil, expecting the manner to come down from heaven.
“We will invest heavily on mechanized farming by bringing in appropriate technology and blow up the place to farm cattle, goats, poultry, grow various vegetables and fruits and all the potential cash crops we dream of to grow our economy for the purpose that we must produce large volume and quality of commercial crops both for domestic consumption, food security and export earnings.
“We must now be smart in our thinking and aggressively push beyond the boundaries of our development aspirations or else it would be a tragedy. To do this, agriculture is the way forward for us.
There is one impediment that holds us back is land issues where much of the land are customary and so we have been unable to do large scale farms, etc.
“I have tasked the District Administration (North Fly) to commence immediate consultations with the potential customary landowners along the accessible roads. The accessible roads will be Kiunga Tabubil Highway, Sisimakam Ralengre road, Indonesia road, Gre Drimgas road, Smotu Rampsite road, Kmom P’nyang road, Ok Menga Olsobip road, Rampsite Strickland road, Ningerum Digam Hukim road, to assist unlock their land now. We can go into agreements not to purchase their land but have an understanding to engage landowners to be part of the arrangement and same time we assist them acquire their titles. We need massive landmass of more than 500 – 1 million hectares to realize our potential in agriculture,” said North Fly MP and Vice Minister for Mining and Border Development.
“At the same time, we must open up and attract investments in other areas in our District and Province. Investments in areas of building our human resources, strengthen and rebuild our public service, build capacities of institutions in our province, create Special Economic Zones, Free Trade Zones, build key enabling infrastructures such as roads and highways connecting the whole province, become internationally connected with Indonesia by road with proper facilities at the border entry points and start commerce and trade. We must enjoy best healthcare facilities, best education facilities, etc.
“Also, all Western Province leaders must unite and push hard for separate standalone Western LNG starting with the P’nyang Gas project aggregating all the stranded fields by building a processing and load out facility in Daru. The benefit must be shared equally across the whole province as we have done with the Ok Tedi Mining. This is the second largest economy to carry Western province if we are not careful.”
These must be our priorities now and we must work extremely smarter to realize these aspirations.
“We also need to seriously consider cleaning our back yard with one being to cut down on excessive public services wages in our provincial government accounting system or PGAS system. I make this specific mention because most of our development budget are always spend on the operational public service payrolls. Almost OTML’s royalties to FRPG is spent on operational budget year in year out. We need every single toea now to put to good use to reflect the value for money.”
