Temu-Trukai row over rice project

By ANCILLA WRAKUALE
MINISTER for Agriculture and Livestock Sir Puka Temu has expressed disappointment with Trukai Industries for the recent advertisements regarding the proposed commercial rice farming in Central province.
 “As minister for agriculture and livestock, I am very disappointed with Trukai Industries for the paid advertisements they have been carrying in the newspapers.
“What they are doing is going against this investment.
“The government has not decided on anything yet so this is not acceptable as negotiations are still going on.
“The government has established a state team to facilitate this negotiation and they are Departments of Agriculture and Livestock, Finance and Treasury, Environment, Lands, Attorney-General, National Planning and Monitoring, Commerce and Industry, as well as the ICCC and the Central province administration.
“So what Trukai is doing is pre-empting the outcome and as minister concerned, I can not accept that.
“So far, four landowner groups from Kairuku-Hiri have been formed and have decided on 100,000ha to be used but that has not yet been confirmed,” Sir Puka said.
The proposed commercial rice farming by Naima Agro Industries Ltd is said to be seeking exclusive tax breaks and concessions for their company tax, their shareholders and their foreign employees under a proposal before the PNG government.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer of the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry David Conn said if it was a good deal, the commercial operator should get on with it, put their own money in and do the hard yards, instead of coming running cup in hand for government assistance.
“We can see little or no merit in such a scheme for the rice consumers of PNG.
“It sounds like just another “sweetheart” deal developed by “investors” who do not have the money to do it themselves.
“We have seen too many of these sort of monopoly deals in the past and really do not need any more.
“In the last few years, we have seen a welcome rise in competition in the rice industry and consumers have befitted greatly from this – just before Christmas, the major supplier, Trukai, even lowered its prices by 18%.
“This is a massive decrease and points to the level of competition that already exists in the marketplace.
“Competition is the only thing that brings the prices down in a demand-supply economy, nothing else.
 “Are we seriously suggesting we leave the consumers of rice that is the majority of the PNG populace, in the hands of one monopolist venture, and give them the right to control rice prices, when their venture fails to deliver the volumes it predicts?.”                 
When Trukai Industries was contacted yesterday, its general manager Marc Denovan refused to comment in the press but said he would respond directly to Sir Puka when they meet.
Attempts to get comments from the developer of the proposed rice project Naima Agri Industries were unsuccessful.