QUESTION OF THE MONTH: IS IT KAIKAI OR PEKPEK INSIDE THE TUNA TIN?
by SUSAN LOKUN It is amazing how our country could sell a resource that people around the world want and sometimes pay very good money for, then buy back the absolute garbage leftovers that the rest of the world doesn't want. We have some of the last remaining large resources of yellowfin tuna in the whole world. It is one of our most precious resource. RD Tuna was the first cannery built in PNG to supposedly develop PNG's tuna resource. RD Tuna has always been a scam enterprise. RD Tuna owner Rodrigo E. Rivera and his family who owns a heap of tuna canneries in General Santos and Cebu in the Philippines. The RD group of companies began in 1976 as a pawnshop in General Santos City. Rivera owns a large fleet of tuna fishing boats named after his wife Dolly. Those fishing boats go out all over the South Pacific, including PNG waters. Very few of them dump their catch at the RD tuna cannery in Madang. Most head straight for Philippines.