Firm eyes Govt arrears

By PETER ESILA
STEAMSHIPS Trading Company hopes the Government can settle its millions of kina in arrears, says managing director Rupert Bray.
Bray said it was always a challenge doing business with the Government.
“We do have significant outstanding with the Government, and that is millions and millions of kina, tens of millions,” he said.
“It is a challenge because we value the Government’s business, but we have to have Government entities paying their bills because we can’t afford to pay our own staff if we are not being paid by our customers, and in this case, the State.”
Steamships is a diversified leader in shipping, transport, property and commercial operation in Papua New Guinea.
“Unfortunately, the arrears that we have with Government is across a couple of our business areas, it is not just Pacific Palms Property,” Bray said.
“We have debts outstanding from Apec and even before that, so we have considerable arrears from a long time ago,” Bray said.
Meanwhile, he said last year was obviously a difficult year for all companies as well as Steamships.
“For our hospitality businesses (Coral Sea Hotels) it was a very immediate and very deep impact,” Bray said.
“We closed two hotels for a period temporarily, staff took furlough, but about August-September, we picked up to normal operations, and now we continue to operate as normal.
“Our logistic businesses, which is Consort, East West Trucking, JV Port Services and Pacific Towing, were affected at the beginning, but soon recovered by about 90 per cent of what they would normally do; that is where they are now.
“The impact on the (property division) was slower.”
Starting operations in 1918, Steamships has been investing in PNG’s growth, development and progress since, steadily evolving its business to meet current needs and anticipate the future.