PJV hands over water project containing 44 tanks to villages

THE Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) has handed over the Top Yarik supplementary water project to the village water committee following the installation of 44 water tanks at various locations.
The company said in a statement that 21 village water committee members from Top Yarik signed off on the project memorandum of agreement (MOA) with PJV on Nov 20.
“The tanks were installed at 27 locations enabling community members of Top Yarik to have access to clean drinking water,” it said.
“The installed tank capacities were nine 9000L, 10 5000L and 22 1000L water tanks.”
Top Yarik is one of the seven special mine lease (SML) communities that have benefited from PJV’s supplementary water project which was initiated in 2016.
PJV’s community development officer Max Piawen said the Top Yarik water project was planned in 2016. He said several factors including sinkholes and earthquakes had caused a delay to the project, resulting in the community being the last to have completed the supplementary water project for SML communities.
Community development manager Jacqueline Nen commended the village water committee for seeing through the project to completion without any injuries.
She said what was important was that all the parties had closed-off on the project MOA to mark its completion on the part of Barrick Niugini Ltd (BNL) and for the village water committee to take on their responsibility of managing the project.
“It is now your project to manage for your communities,” Nen said.
“Under the water project memorandum of agreement, there are other areas of assistance which we will also look at which includes agriculture projects and training.”