Regulate policy, says minister

PETROLEUM Minister Kerenga Kua says a domestic market obligation (DMO), especially with the use of the country’s natural resources should be properly licensed, regulated and monitored.
Kua told new Energy Minister William Onglo during a handover ceremony yesterday in Port Moresby that there should be policy guidelines on how exactly the DMO should be used for the benefit of end-users
“The DMO cuts across several departments,” he said.
“Treasury had their input, National Planning had their input, my department, Petroleum, had an input.
“But the final say will be in your hands, the Energy department.
“People have forgotten what we have been fighting for domestic market provision in this country.
“It’s not here to encourage direct spin off businesses.
“If that was the case, then we will be better off selling the product.
“However, when we go to the table of any project negotiation and ask for provisioning, we have a particular agenda in mind.
“We have a reason for doing that.
“That reason is to provide a possible source of cheap energy, cheap electricity.
“That is the intention.”
Kua was disappointed that DMO is being used without proper guidelines.
“What I’ve seen happening under my nose, even before we had an opportunity to develop a policy to access and use of domestic marketing provision from for example, from the PNG LNG project, and now the soon to be Papua LNG project, people are already accessing it without any policy guidelines and making money directly from it,” he said.
“That is not the intention of DMO.
“I’m pretty disappointed with the way we have allowed for that to happen.”