Resource campaign is lazy talk

CANDIDATES in resource-rich electorates around the country are having a field day.
They will do everything in their power. They are telling potential voters to ensure resource owners have a greater say and get a greater share of the benefits of resource developments.

They are painting the resource developers as selfish multi-nationals hell-bent on exploitation and profits with hardly a care for the welfare of ordinary Papua New Guineans and, particularly, resource owners.
This is, of course, a cowardly gambit since most resource companies have no recourse. They have no right of reply and would never raise a voice in protest anyway or they would be accused of participating in politics.

These kinds of talk make us recall the 1987 elections on the island of Bougainville. Then regional MP John Momis ran a hard anti-Bougainville Copper Ltd campaign, calling the company the “BCL pig” that needed slaughtering.

There was a mass slaughter later that year and of more than just the BCL pig. The insurrection that erupted on the island led to tens of thousands dead and the total neglect of entire generations of a people for 15 years. The pain is still being felt as Momis takes the helm of the Autonomous region’s government as its president.

Momis did not instigate what transpired with his campaign hard talk - there was already sufficient angst building up on the ground when the BCL agreement review did not come up in 1981 and again in 1987 – but the timing of his campaign talk was most unfortunate indeed.
The same is true today as well.

It is all very well to today talk about changing the law to transfer mineral and petroleum ownership back to the landowners. But has somebody sat down to really have a look at what it will mean for the future of PNG?
Are landowners the best candidates for wealth generation and, especially, for wealth distribution nationally?

Just how many billions have gone into landowning groups in the major resource areas of the country? We talk about Bougainville, Kutubu, Lihir, Porgera, Hidden Valley, Misima, Kainantu, Hides, Moran, Gobe and the list goes on.
The thundering rejoinder to the above sentence will be that what the landowners have received is a pittance compared to the billions that have been siphoned off overseas by the companies.
True, but there is hardly any evidence on the ground of the little that has been given to the resource owners, the provincial government and that which has been poured into government coffers through equity, dividend and taxation payments.

At all levels, our people have spent all the benefits with a single-mindedness bordering on insanity without a thought for future generations.
It would be an excellent exercise to find out just how much has been paid to resource owners over the years and see where all this money has gone.
The issue then should not be one of transferring ownership or wealth but of how to manage what we do have at all levels. This is to ensure the benefits are spread from this generation to the next and from one community to the next.

If we do not manage K1 now, there is no guarantee that we will manage K100 or K1 billion in future.
If one community has no thought for its own sons and daughters in future, how can they be made to change their mindset overnight to think about the welfare of the neighbouring community which does not own any resource, much less for that community’s future generations?
Resource benefits’ distribution is an important topic but the present talk is lazy talk by those who see passage of laws as a solution to a rather complex problem. It is not.

Resource benefits sharing must definitely be on the agenda for the next government. But it ought to be one of how much more resource owners and governments can get under the present fiscal regime.
There are many ways that can be done – equity participation, through taxation, through agreement reviews.

It is the benefits distribution and management of it that has fallen by the wayside. It must be known by one and all that resources are owned 100% by Papua New Guineans including resource owners through their government, the state.

If the government wanted, there is nothing stopping it under present arrangements, to own 90% or 100% of the mine or oil well, raise the money to fund the development of the resource and outsource management to a competent developer.

DE NESENOLIS

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