Member for Goroka Open Aiya Tambua in Friday’s Parliament Sitting’s question without notice, raised concerns in-regards to BSP Financial Group Limited’s functions and operations that needs the government’s attention.
Mr. Tambua’s concerns were directed to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises (SOE) William Duma.
“There are few issues in the bank that requires the government’s attention, and I want to put it to the floor of Parliament for all of us to know and try to address these issues.
BSP is a very big bank not only in PNG but in the South Pacific and the bank has employed many Papua New Guineans and continues to employe PNG citizens every day.
BSP Bank also represent 51 % of the banking shares in PNG and in some other countries, BSP own 100% of the banking shares.
My concerns and some concerns raised by some staff is that, most National staff are marginalized from our own bank.
We are now importing a lot of expatriates to come and take the place of some of our national staff,” Mr. Tambua said.
He added that a lot of positions at the bank that should be given to national staff has been given to expatriates and national staff are suppressed.
“The work that most of the national staff can do has been given to people from other countries to come here and do to come and do the work that our national staff can do.
This shows that we have been marginalized in our country, by our own bank, by our own board of directors.
If you look at the management system of BSP Bank, there is only less then 10% of national staff at the top management of BSP Bank in this country and the rest are expatriates and yet we are declaring K1 billion profit.
The profit that the bank declares most comes from PNG and yet we are marginalized. My question to the government, what is the government policies to protect our national staff,” Mr. Tambua asked.
Minister for State Owned Enterprises Willia Duma thanked the Member for Goroka for his question and said that the question has been raised informally by many Papua New Guineans on social media as well.
Minister Duma also clarified that BSP Financial Goup is not 100% owned by PNG shareholders and the Banking laws does not allow one shareholder to own more than 20% of a bank because the bank deals with other people’s money.
“This rules that a set up by the Bank of PNG and these are banking laws you find in many other countries of the world, and PNG is not an exception, and banking is an international business.
If you look at the shareholders of BSP, the top six are our Papua New Guinean shareholders and rest are international investors, so we do not own BSP 100%,” Mr. Duma said.