Samar vows to work with TIPNG

Business

MINERAL Resources Authority managing director Philip Samar will work with Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG) to address corruption risks in the extractive industry.
Samar said this during the launching of the Transparency International Papua New Guinea  Corruption Risks in Mining Awards country report yesterday in Port Moresby.
He said they would take on board the report if the issues outlined directly affected their processes which target mining processes.
According to the report, the seven risks associated with mining awards are:

  • Weaknesses in cross-institutional capacity;
  • human resource capacity in regulators;
  • coherence of feasibility studies and memorandum of agreements;
  • lack of a national geo-spatial agency;
  • consultation with community representatives; and,
  • Corporate social reporting and issues surrounding the inclusion of women and vulnerable members of communities.

“Mining seems to be under the spotlight for transparency purposes,” he said.
“So spotlighting our process helps us to improve in the way we do business for government.”
Samar said MRA might be following the interests of the Mining Act but some of the processes carried out might raise some issues which needed addressing.
“What the report has been able to bring out is that we may be following the intentions of the Mining Act and we try our  best to do that,” he said.
“But there are some things we may not be aware of that have raised issues which may be historical. But there is the need to consider those.
“We’d like to engage. If this things speaks directly to our process which is the mining awards process, we’ll take it on board and engage directly with it.”