Bill to bring more benefits, says Tuke

By SHIRLEY MAULUDU
MINING Minister Johnson Tuke says the country and people will benefit more from mining projects following passing of the Mining Amendment Bill in Parliament last week.
Tuke was speaking during a cocktail event on Friday.
“What we demand is a fair take. All we want is you (industry) take your fair share and we take ours,” he said.
“It’s not that we want to be nationalistic. No, we need you too.
“We need partners.
“If you want to extend your business in this country, you better be able to fulfil some of your social obligations. That is the licence that will give you a guarantee.”
Department of Mineral Policy and Geohazards Management secretary Harry Kore said there were three specific issues that stood out from the amendment.
“The changes that have been made to the Act basically empower the State to do mineral exploration and also do mining,” he said.
“That will be done through the State applicant, and the State applicant is an entity nominated by the State to conduct on behalf of the State.
“Just for clarity, this is not the revised Mining Act.
“The second thing that is in the revised amendment, is the repository of mineral data as well as exploration and production data.
“We have calls from our people that we basically do not know how much is being exported out of the country.
“What we have done is to make sure we know exactly how much is shipped out of the country and how much has been sold, and it assists us to know our tax base.
“The third one is arbitration.
“As per the amendments, all arbitration must be done in PNG and must be subject to the jurisdiction of this country.”
Mineral Resource Authority managing director Jerry Garry said: “We are not doing enough to collect tax, we are losing about 20 per cent more than other countries.
“One of the obvious thing that we detected is that we did not have the visibility to what is produced in every mine around the country,” he said.
“One of the things was to have advanced process control system to any operating mine.
“The idea is to see what is put through the plant and what comes out of the plant.”