PNG Ports pays dividend to State

PNG Ports Corporation has paid K9,634,146.12 as its interim dividend to the Kumul Consolidated Holdings Ltd (KCHL).
PNG Ports chairman Kepas Wali said it was 50 per cent of the total dividend for 2019 which would be around K19.8 million.
Wali said the company had continued its operations during the Covid-19 pandemic even though its cargo and shipping volumes had decreased.
Managing director Fego Kiniafa explained that the company depended on importers and exporters.
“We depend on their decisions which has indirect (impact) on volumes (of cargo) coming to the wharf,” Kiniafa said.
“This year has was challenging and we had a decline of about eight per cent in our volumes on average. We have different classes of cargo going through our wharves.
“Our revenues has concurrently gone down as a result of the decline in volumes. We have also not gone out and spent the money that we are supposed to spend under normal circumstance.
“There were some savings in that regard.
“We are slightly above our results for last year and hopefully within this month and next month, we should be able to give a result that’s almost similar or slightly above last year’s result.”
KCHL managing director Isikeli Taureka said PNG Ports was one of the country’s better performing State-owned enterprises.