Miners waiting for promised help

A TOTAL of K4 million from the Morobe government’s budget of 2019 and 2020 to support alluvial miners in Morobe is yet to reach us.
The executives of Morobe Goldfield Small Scale Miners Association Incorporation are suspecting that the money is being used unlawfully with our name being used as beneficiaries.
This association looks after alluvial miners.
Albatross Integrated, a consultation firm, was picked by the Morobe government to head the programme between the association and the provincial government and K2 million was allocated from the provincial budget in 2019 and 2020 respectively .
But we never saw any of those monies.
We gave a petition to the Morobe governor’s office on May 21 and we are still waiting for their response.
This money will be used to support more than 300 licensed-miners who are part of association.
We carried out an awareness with the miners and the Morobe government in 2018.
The awareness was led by provincial administrator, Bart Ipambonj, and we covered the alluvial mining areas in Bulolo.
After that, the provincial government passed a resolution to give K2 million each year to help us but we haven’t seen any money since then.

MGSSMA executives
Lae