Firm holding election to appoint directors of PDL beneficiaries

By DALE LUMA
THE Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) will conduct elections to appoint directors of beneficiaries of the Petroleum Development License (PDL) 7, an official says.
It follows the opening of bank accounts for the beneficiaries.
MRDC managing director Augustine Mano told The National that the elections would begin at the end of the mourning period for Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare.
He said after the elections, PDL 7 beneficiaries would have their benefits paid directly into their clan accounts.
“The process is that after opening of accounts, we have to elect directors and then payment follows,” he said. “We opened accounts in Petroleum Development License 7 last December and was supposed to start the election this week.
“We have suspended the process until after the funeral.
“For the PNG LNG projects, we have made payments for the plant site, pipeline.”
The account opening exercise conducted by the Mineral Resources Development Company and the Department of Petroleum saw 273 clans out of 279 opening accounts with Bank South Pacific and Kina Bank in Hides, Hela.
The programme, which ran for seven days, saw executives become signatories to the clan bank accounts that will hold royalties and equity payments, including outstanding payments since 2014.
Clans in Parepare, Keteranda, Timala Kangulu, Towanda Tokaju, the Middle and Tuguba regions went through the exercise peacefully and without incident.
The six regions are landowners of the LNG gas well-heads, the gas conditioning plant and the surrounding impacted area in the Komo local level government of the PNG LNG project.