Govt told to be fair with benefit split

A local level government council in Hela wants the Government to organise a percentage split of all development levies between Southern Highlands and Hela provincial governments and the impacted LLGs.
Komo LLG president Thomas Potape, who is also the deputy-governor of the province, wants a benefit-sharing development forum to be organised so that benefits from oil and gas projects in the two provinces are equally split.
Potape said there was no legal agreement in place between the Southern Highlands and Hela on how benefits from all resource developments were to be shared.
These include Kutubu oil that started in 1991 and the PNG LNG Project that started in 2009.
Hela separated from Southern Highlands and became a province of its own in 2012.
Potape said his concern was not just development levies from the PNG PNG Project but other benefits from existing oil and gas projects including Kutubu, Gobe, Moran, Hides and South East Mananda.
There were also shares in Bank South Pacific and Petroleum Kutubu Resources investments in Mineral Resource Development Company (MRDC) and others.
Potape said development levies were parked in the Central Bank.
In 2017, K90million was released followed by another K52million (K26 million each) this year to the two provincial governments.
Potape said payment of the funds was illegal in the absence of a benefit split.
He said his Komo LLG was a beneficiary to the funds as the impacted project area.
“All the LNG projects are in my LLG,” Potape said.
“I’m entitled to the infrastructure development grants and the development levies. I should be using the money and doing many thing for my LLG, but legally there is no provision for our share of the benefit.”
He said the Government should now organise a development forum to discuss and sign an agreement for the fair split of benefits between the two provinces.