Rai Coast elder praises Ramu NiCo for recognising, helping churches

A CHURCH elder in Rai Coast, Madang, has thanked Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) and stakeholders for allocating 1 per cent of royalty payments from the project to assist evangelism work.
Pastor James Bassi of South Seas Evangelical Churches said this last week when technicians from Brian Bell in Madang went to his church in Bogadjim to connect appliances to power up a solar panel kit.
The kit was donated to the church by the Coastal Pipeline Landowners’ Association (CPL-LOA).
Bassi also thanked Ramu NiCo for recognising churches as vital development partners in addressing the current socio-economic situation in the country.
“I am so grateful and happy that this Christmas, our congregation will be worshipping using power supply from solar kits which were donated to us by our landowner association, and that came
from the Ramu Nickel project.”
The CPL-LOA had set the pace in the Ramu project when it commenced distributing solar panels kits to churches in project impact areas in Astrolabe Bay LLG of Rai Coast starting last month.
The items were purchased from 1 per cent of royalty payments which the LOA decided to set aside to assist churches in Ramu NiCo-impacted communities in the Coastal Pipeline area of Ramu nickel/cobalt project in Astrolabe Bay LLG.
“The 1 per cent is like an offering to the churches by the Coastal Pipeline Landowner Association in the last revised MOA of 2013,” said chairman of CPL-LOA Jeffrey Kinang Gamrai.