Govt did not get funds for zone project: Minister

National, Normal
Source:
The National,Friday June 3rd, 2016

THE Government has not received any funding from the Exim (Export Import) Bank of China to fund the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone project in Madang.
Public Enterprise and State Investments Minister William Duma explained that an agreement had been signed between the Government and the bank for a loan to fund the project.
But he said the Government had not seen the money and was in the process of renegotiating.
He was responding to deputy Opposition Leader Sam Basil in Parliament who questioned the financing and actual work being carried out for the PMIZ.
Basil said he believed the Government had successfully obtained the first K300 million to finance the project and was renegotiating for an additional US$168 million (K450 million) for the same project.
He said there should be proper process of checking and verifying of quality and completion of different stages of the project before additional funding was sought.
Duma said there was a lot of misinformation about the PMIZ project.
“No money has been transferred from our friends from the bank in China. There was an agreement signed by the Government for a loan from the Chinese bank. Unfortunately we have not seen the money due to our unpreparedness and issues to resolve with landowners.
“We are in the process of renegotiating. We realised that we need more money that was anticipated for the fisheries industry.”