No evidence of Ok Tedi doing alluvial mining, says official

THE Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) says there was no evidence that Ok Tedi Mining Ltd was conducting alluvial gold mining from the Fly River at Bige, Western.
Managing director Jerry Garry was responding to allegations on social media that the Ok Tedi Mining Ltd had been illegally conducting alluvial mining while dredging sedimentation from the Fly River at Bige.
According to a social media post, there was a dredging project at Bige along the Ok Tedi River under the pretext of river rehabilitation work for the last 20 years since operation started on March 30, 1998.
The post stated that this hole-and-corner project started as a joint partnership project between the mine and its contractors Lower Ok Tedi Investment Ltd, Lotic Bige Ltd and Dredeco to dredge the river system.
Garry, however, said as far as the MRA was concerned, there was no evidence of the mining company conducting alluvial gold mining.
He said MRA inspectors had been onboard the dredge and that there was no mechanical gold processing plant onboard.
Garry urged people making those allegations to provide evidence to substantiate their claims.
“You cannot just pluck words out of the blue,” he said.