Explosive matters pending

 By MALUM NALU

A MINEFIELD lies ahead for the country if all outstanding matters in the PNG LNG project are not resolved immediately, says Komo-Margarima MP Francis Potape.

This is despite the best efforts by project developer Esso Highlands, he said.

Potape said top of the list was the apathetic attitude of certain government ministers towards the country’s biggest ever resource project. He also mentioned the January 2012 Tumbi landslide disaster.

He announced this week that he was crossing the floor to the government side in the best interests of his people because they were in the middle of the project.

“The developer is doing its best,” Potape said.

“If government presence is almost nil, if government ministers are not working with developers, people will do whatever they want and sometimes that’s when the problem happens.

“The trip by Minister Richard Maru was the first under Prime Minister O’Neill’s reign. The last one was the one I led, with Esso Highlands managing director Peter Graham and Governor Anderson Agiru, to the construction work at Komo airfield development and Hides gas conditioning plant.

“Ever since, no minister has ever gone there to see how the project is progressing

“I can say, as the MP from there, that Maru was sent by God. If he had not come, you would not have heard Anderson Agiru blowing up in public the way he did.

“He did it because the pressure on the ground was so much. If he did not come, the Hela people would have blown up.”