Landowners advised on how best to benefit from mining project

THREE local level governments in Morobe have been urged to work with their provincial government to form a collective development plan, before coming to the negotiating table with operators of the Wafi-Golpu project.
The LLGs are Wampar, Lae Urban and Ahi.
Mineral Resources Authority acting managing director Nathan Mosusu made the call last week at the Wafi-Golpu project development forum in Lae.
He said it was important to adapt the bottom-up planning concept in preparation for expected benefits negotiations for the project.
This is so that benefits distribution was targeted and more focused on the very needs people had.
Mosusu said in some cases, districts, LLGs and provincial governments had their own “wish-lists” and worked in isolation.
This resulted in poor services to people which led onto creating issues for Government and investors.
“The National Government wants to see consistency and sustainability in the way benefits will be delivered to the people concerned,” Mosusu said.
“We would like to see basic service needs properly identified through bottom-up planning.”
Mosusu said MRA would make every effort to facilitate dialogue to ensure that everybody’s views were heard. He also outlined the various benefits streams that could be negotiated between stakeholders during memorandums of agreement.
These include special support grants, localisation and training, business spin-offs and women in mining.
Development forums are initial parts of the benefits-sharing negotiation processes which the National Government initiates as per the Mining Act 1992.