O'neill: PNG must own resources

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said Papua New Guineans must not only be spectators and tax collectors but resource owners to reap maximum benefits from their non renewable resources. Mr O’Neill said this last Friday on FM 100 talkback show hosted by Roger Hau’ofa, which was also attended by Public Enterprise Minister Ben Micah and NCD Governor Powes Parkop. The Prime Minister, who went on air to explain the K3 billion UBS loan, said there has been a lot of misinformation that was going around on the loan arrangements.

He said the UBS loan is not a new loan but the one that replaces the IPIC loan from the Arabs who have since refused to sell back the Oil Search shares mortgage for Papua New Guinea’s 19.4 percent equity participation in the LNG project. Mr O’Neill said Papua New Guineans have not held any interest in major resource projects such as Lihir, Misima and Porgera mines but have been mere tax and royalty collectors for the last 40 years.

“Papua New Guineans all throughout the country are crying for ownership of their own resources and rightfully so because we have had the experience over the past forty years about resource development in the country. “Many of our citizens feel that we have been deprived of the benefits from these resources that should truly be given back to Papua New Guineans.” Mr O’Neill said since this government took office, it heard that cry for resource ownership and was trying its best to find a way to increase the benefits that are going to come to Papua New Guinea.

“We don’t just want to be tax collectors, we don’t want to be royalty collectors, we must have ownership of many of our resource developments,” he said. He said that the Government was addressing these cries and did not break any laws in negotiating the loan with the UBS Bank for K3 billion. He said when PNG government went to negotiate the IPIC loan for the LNG project, the government had no money, so the State had to mortgage virtually everything it owns, including all assets of government.

He said by March 6 this year, PNG had zero percent shares in Oil Search due to the IPIC loan arrangements and with the Arabs refusal to sell back the 15 percent shares held in Oil Search. “Knowing very well that Papua New Guineans want to own resources, the government had to find a way to get some shares, so when Oil Search was prepared to go to the market to do their own business transactions with the Gulf LNG project, they need to raise money to pay for that investment. He said Oil Search went public through the Australian Stock Exchange inviting every other shareholder and since PNG were not share holders, the government negotiated and asked that since the government has been 100 percent at one time, it asked the company to give back some shares to the people.

“I think all in all, you have some savings that PNG must be proud of and we must make sure that Papua New Guineans continue to own resources in their own country. These resources are not renewable resources, once they ar taken out of PNG, it will never come back so Papua New Guineans must maximise their benefits.

PNG Today/Post Courier