District church groups receive royalty payments from project

Business

THIRTY-SIX church groups in Usino-Bundi, Madang, received a total of K111,756.56 in a royalty payout from Ramu NiCo project this week.
Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) representative based in Madang, Nicholas Waipuk, presented the cheque to the pastors and expressed MRA’s gratitude that the money would finally benefit the genuine landowners through their church organisations. “MRA’s real concern is to ensure that the royalties from all the projects in PNG benefit the genuine landowners and not the paper landowners,” he said.
“It is the landowner executives’ wisdom to capture the church component of the royalty under the project MoA (memorandum of understanding) and we are now seeing the benefit to the churches.”
Waipuk thanked Ramu NiCo, the Maigari landowners association and the churches for working together.
The money was from the one per cent component of the 2018 royalty payout, according to Ramu NiCo management.
Ramu NiCo community affairs general manager, Martin Paining, told the church pastors the mine was committed to taking care of its landowners.
“Under the Ramu NiCo project MoU, youths, women’s groups and landowners receive their royalties including the churches,” he said.
He urged the pastors to use the funds for the benefit of their communities and congregations.
Maigari landowners association chairman Jacob Winis said his executives would ensure benefits were filtered down to genuine landowners including churches.
“The previous executives decided to purchase building materials and other support services for the churches but under my executive, we decided to open a bank account for all churches so that they receive their royalty,” Winis said.