All that glitters is not gold

Letters

I READ with amazement the news about the Lihir mine royalties paid out to New Ireland which was published in both dailies and I want to challenge us to see the hidden message in the report.
First, we should question how on earth the Mining Act came up with a mere two per cent benefit to the resource owners?
We should all question our MPs on what is hard about changing the Act and giving more benefits to people who own these resources.
For God created the land and gave them authority to use and have dominion over the resources and not for foreigners to come and trick us and deny us our rights over our resources.
This Act is flawed as it is against natural laws instituted by the creator and the Act should be condemned in the strongest way.
Since taking over the mine, NML seems to think that two per cent is a fair to New Ireland. Can they calculate the 98 per cent that they have been making since 1997?
The memorandum of understanding that they mentioned expired five years ago and they have been deliberately prolonging the review of it so they can continue to extract the gold while the resource owners are mere spectators on their land.
I challenge NML to also publish the amounts (98%) that they make after selling the gold, if they think that the K640 million royalty is enough.
They can also provide evidence to support their claims that they have been making a loss since mining started on Lihir.

Kiar Kafous
Kavieng