Protest an act of domestic terrorism: Blacklock

By HELEN TARAWA
PNG Power acting managing director Carolyn Blacklock has described an industrial action by a group of PNG Power workers as an act of domestic terrorism.
She said the management was not given any notice of the protest by the group of workers at the 4-Mile operations depot.
“Only a small number of staff at 4-Mile went on an illegal stop-work,” she said.
“It is an act of domestic terrorism deliberately intended to disrupt essential services.
“We were not given any notice. The strike is illegal and we have police investigating.”
She thanked the five teams who worked the whole weekend.
“I’m really appreciative of the workers who continued to work on Friday and all weekend and chose not to strike,” Blacklock said
“The managers who were sacked were not members of the union. The support I received from general staff and customers is clear, that they want incompetence and rot out of PNG Power.”
Eleven PNG Power officers had been sacked and another seven demoted during a company restructure.
Meanwhile, Blacklock said the company would carry out about 40,000 new connections this year as part of the rural electrification programme.
She gave a K1 million cheque to local contractor Aguila Automotive to carry out the connections from Walium to Usino in the Usino-Bundi district of Madang.
“It’s the first power supply project in the district and we are giving the contractor a chance, with training and an inspector onsite,” she said.
“We have about 108 similar projects planned for districts in the country which we hope will cover around 40,000 connections this year.”