State to consult further on Gold Bill

By GLORIA BAUAI
DEPUTY Prime Minister John Rosso says the concept behind the National Gold Corporation Bill 2022 is good but certain issues must be corrected, which requires more stakeholder consultation.
“There has to be a wide stakeholder consultation, and that, we have to do it right,” he said.
“The National Gold Corporation Bill, in my view, has certain issues that needs to be rectified. That is why the Government has called for a stakeholder consultation.”
Rosso said while he did not fully support the bill in its current form, he would ensure that the appropriate laws and amendments were rectified.
Rosso told The National that he acknowledged the concerns raised by alluvial miners in Wau and Bulolo who opposed the bill last Friday.
“I note the issues the miners have,” he said.
“The concept (of the bill) is actually very good but we have to make certain the detailed process and everything is above word and must be done so that our people benefit.”
Wau-Waria MP Marsh Narewec last Friday received a petition with over 400 signatures of lease-holders to be submitted to Parliament.
The miners protested the bill, specifically sections 215, 216, 227 and 228, which they claimed would restrict their access to a free market and tying them down to the proposed National Gold Mint as the exclusive refiner of all gold mined or recovered from land in Papua New Guinea. The proposed Bill was also opposed by the PNG Chamber of Resources and Energy (PNG CORE) as a recipe for a statutory gold monopoly market.
PNG CORE was concerned that the Bill in its current form proposed to invalidate existing miner development contracts, including long-term market arrangements which will impact existing financial obligations of operating miners and on-going operations.
It also discussed the cross-sector impact of the bill which would affect functions of the Central Bank, Department of Justice and Attorney General and other state agencies such as Customs, Internal Revenue Commission and Independent Consumer and Competition Commission.