After weeks of negotiations the Parties to the Central Cement & Limestone Project Community Development Agreement (CDA) have reached the initialization drafting of the project documents.
The initializing drifting of the project documents basically means the process of creating and defining all the necessary documents related to the resources needed for the project.
The Project is located in the Hiri-Koiari District and the parties include the Kido Landowners Association, Rearea Landowners Association, Hiri-Rural Local Level government, Central Government, the State and the developer Mayur Resources Limited.
Benefits that were negotiated include Royalties, Special Support Grants, Tax Credit scheme, Business development Plan (spin-off benefits/contract for landowners) and Infrastructure development.
Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) Representative Mr. Nathan Mosusu thanked all parties involved in the negotiation for a fruitful discussion that took place before the initializing of the project documents and engaged the landowner leaders to ensure everyone is part of the project and will benefit from the project that will take place on their land.
“For all the other parties, one of the major issues that we face on other projects in other provinces is Good Governance. We talk about project deliveries; we talk about equity benefits of people, but rarely do we see our people benefit and these are things that we need to work on to improve going forward.
Companies will honor the part of their agreement but when it comes to our wealth something goes wrong somewhere.
So, what I would like to see is that this project benefits our people at Kido and Lealea village and I would like to ask the president and the local member to see to it that this project benefit our people,” Mr. Mosusu said.
Developer Mayur Resources Limited Managing Director Paul Molder said that Central Province will now be the heart of building materials for PNG when the project kicks off.
Central Governor Rufina Peter stated that the initialization drafting of the Central Cement & Limestone Project is a great day for PNG because whatever outcomes of the project will benefit PNG.
She added that she is very happy that Central Province will be a supplier of Cement and other by- products to the country for infrastructure and others.
Member for Hiri-Koiari Keith Iduhu commends the parties involved for achieving the initialization of the CDA.
Both the representatives of the landowner groups thanked all parties involved and stated that they are happy to work with the developer and other parties to reach the initialization of the CDA and are looking forward to the development that will take place on their land.