MRA seeks views over project

The National Business

By CLARISSA MOI
THE Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) is in the process of seeking views of all project stakeholders of the Simberi gold mine in New Ireland on the appropriate actions to take regarding the revised memorandum of agreement (MoA).
Managing director Jerry Garry told The National that the initial Simberi revised MoA was approved for signing by the National Executive Council (NEC) in April 2017. He said since then, many attempts by the MRA to get the 2017 Simberi revised MoA, signed by the parties, had been unsuccessful because the New Ireland government (NIPG) had been refusing to sign.
Garry said the New Ireland government’s grounds for refusing to sign the revised agreement was that its request for increased benefits had not been considered.
“The benefits include royalties, special support grants and the tax credit scheme.
“The State maintained its position that the current rates stipulated under relevant laws would remain until such time these rates were reviewed.”
Garry said the demands put forward by NIPG were:

  • 10 PER cent royalty rate, an increase from the two per cent prescribed rate;
  • 10 PER cent special support grant (SSG), an increase from 0.25 per cent prescribed rate; and,
  • 10 PER cent tax credit scheme (TCS), an increase from 0.75 per cent.

He noted that last year, the proposed changes were submitted by NIPG through an NEC submission to the Office of the State Solicitor (OSS) for legal clearance.
“The OSS advised that the Simberi revised MoA was approved by the NEC in 2017 and had gone through the legal and the established MoA vetting process and that all parties should sign,” he said.
“The MRA is currently in the process of seeking the views of all project stakeholders on what would be the appropriate action to take in respect to the 2017 Simberi revised MoA. (This is) because it has been five years since the MoA was agreed on by the stakeholders to the Simberi project.
“The duration of the revised MoA is five years and the term has naturally lapsed,” Garry said.
St. Barbara Ltd is the operator of the Simberi gold mine.