4000 members to benefit from contract

 FOUR thousand members of the Porgera District Women’s Association (PDWA) will benefit from the cleaning and janitorial services contract with the Porgera Gold mine.

The cleaning and janitorial services at the mining were previously provided by Total Cleaning and Household Services (TCHS),  a landowner company under a contract that will expire this month.

Porgera Gold said the company was in a process of transitioning the cleaning and janitorial services contract for the mine site and camps to the Ipili Wanda Investment (IWI), a business arm of PDWA.

“Effective Nov 29 this year, PDWA, a registered non-profit organisation with current membership of more than 4000 women, will be the contractor for the cleaning and janitorial services,” the company said.

TCHS last month protested its contract termination and presented a petition, demanding Porgera Gold reinstate TCHS as the sole provider of cleaning and janitorial services to the mining and camp sites.

Porgera Gold executive general manager Greg Walker last month received the petition on behalf of the company but affirmed that Porgera Gold would stick by  its commercial decision to award the contract to PDWA’s business arm.

“The main issue for me is that the contractor’s employees will not be terminated as the new contractor has offered to take on any of the current employees on the same conditions as they are currently,” Walker said.

He said the awarding of the labour hire component of the contract to IWI was a demonstration that the company was committed to encouraging, empowering, developing and working with local organisations that had a wide stakeholder base that shared the benefits derived from the opportunities with local community groups.