Limestone project queries made

Letters

I MAKE a reference to the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Chuave MP Wera Mori, and say there was no feasibility study report delivered to the Simbu provincial government and the State on the Limestone project.
The project was initiated in 2004 and approved 10 years later by Cabinet in 2014.
The Duma tribe, apart from Tapie Gam, Kaupa Gam, Molkoru, and Morisime, are the major landowners of the Limestone site and their food gardens, hunting grounds and sacred sites have been cleared by the consultant on the pretext of setting up office buildings and staff houses for the project.
The landowners have lost part of their livelihood as a result of that clearing exercise and have never been paid to date.
The funds allocated for the project have been depleted and the Limestone office in Kundiawa is not manned, which brings us to the question of how the minister came up with a 50-year mine life and 57.2 million-tonne resource deposit?
Can the minister, being a geologist, elaborate further on how they derived those figures?
The government has made available K5 million through National Planning to buy heavy equipment for the Limestone project but the landowner ILGs have yet to be incorporated.
I call on the Minister for National Planning to verify all submissions or proposals to his office in relation to this project.
On behalf of the landowners, I hope the minister will do the right thing and allow this project to be completed and a report presented to the State to enable investors to come in.
Investors want security and a return for their investment.
Limestone is not similar to copper and gold and therefore without a proper feasibility study, no sane investor will touch it.

Era Gaima yal