Release investment funds: Mori

COMMERCE and Industry Minister Wera Mori has urged Treasury to release the funds for potential investment projects to the department so that it can carry out its responsibilities.
Mori said the department had not been given the attention it deserved, even though it was there to drive the flow of investment.
“We have a crystal clear objective arising from Alotau Two. We shouldn’t just be borrowing money for public expenditures.
“We have the Sepik economic zones (with) about K5 million appropriated, Madang Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) K5 million and the Chimbu Lime Stone is K2 million. So it is only K12 million.
“The gold bullion is K2 milllion and the cooperative societies is K1 million. These are our programmes.”
He said the co-operatives societies had received only K500,000.
“We need the full amount. I call on Treasury and the aligning departments to allow Commerce and Industry to run the programmes. We must be funded. It is more or less approaching the middle of the year and we have not received the funds to run our programmes.”
He said the projects when implemented would benefit the country greatly.
“I would like to start with PMIZ. We look forward to working closely with the Madang provincial government and Governor Peter Yama,” he said. “But we cannot operate on a vacuum.
“The Chinese would like to visit PNG to review the PMIZ arrangements.
“What we need now is to put a sustainable business plan in place to convince the Chinese that the project will make money to repay the loan.”