Tuke yet to receive mining audit report

MINING Minister Johnson Tuke says a report on an internal audit into one of the trust accounts that keeps the funds from the proceeds of the Ok Tedi mine for the people of Western is yet to be furnished to his office.
Tuke said these in response to questions from Western Governor Taboi Awi Yoto in Parliament yesterday.
Tuke said the previous government under the leadership of Peter O’Neill had put a moratorium on one of the trust accounts to undertake an audit after allegations of corruption and misuse of funds.
“There are two trust accounts – the Community Mine Continuation Agreement (CMCA) Trust Account and non-CMCA,” he said.
“Under CMCA 12 projects have been identified and they were being done. It comes under Ok Tedi Development Foundation (OTDF).
“The other one is non-CMCA and projects were endorsed before I became the minister.”
Tuke said there were 148 projects endorsed and funded under non-CMCA Trust.
“These projects were done already but we don’t know, whether these projects were actually delivered on the ground or not.
“For this reason, the previous government authorised a project audit to be done so that the people would know whether these funds were actually used to deliver projects and programmes to benefit the people of Western or not,” he said.
“The audit report was done already but I have yet to receive it.”
Tuke said once he received the report he would act on its recommendations with the relevant authorities.
He also clarified that the balance of that funds under the non-CMCA Trust would be given to the Mineral Resource Development Company (MRDC) as per a Cabinet decision.