Miringtoro statement foolish ignorant and misleading says Momis
Aloysius Laukai | New Dawn
President of the ABG, John Momis today described claims made in a recent Press Statement by the National Member for Central Bougainville as Foolish, Ignorant and misleading. MP Jimmy Miringtoro
MP Jimmy Miringtoro
The President was responding to this week’s claims by Jimmy Miringtoro’s statement with wrongly attacked ABG President Momis as pushing for BCL to re-open the Panguna mine and has not listened to the wishes of the people on the ground.
Miringtoro also claimed that BCL will offload all its shares to the National Government and also saying that the ABG legal Adviser, Tony Regan was recently engaged as legal consultant to draft the ABG Mining law and had links with Rio Tinto BCL’s parent company.
The Member also said that the Legal Adviser had meddled in Bougainville Affairs by advising on Bougainville’s Mining law.
President Momis said that the claims by Miringtoro were completely wrong and questioned if he knew anything of Bougainville’s history in which President Momis was a consistent critic of BCL and its treatment to the people of Bougainville. O'Neill and Momis pose
O’Neill and Momis (photo Tony Kaybing)
He said that as the current ABG President, he had examined other options for the re-opening of the Panguna Mine but the leaders of the mine-leased landowners preferred the devil they knew and not a new devil.
At the same time the ABG is aware that under international law PNG and the ABG cannot completely ignore BCL’s existing legal rights.
The President said that Miringtoro’s claim that Momis said that BCL will offload all its shares to the Papua New Guinea Government is also not true as he had advised Prime Minister Peter O’Neill against any National Government’s move to repeal the Mining (Bougainville Copper Agreement) act or take over Rio Tinto shares in BCL.
He said that it was essential all decisions about the Panguna mine are made only by ABG on behalf of the people of Bougainville.
On the claims of engaging Tony Regan recently, President Momis said that Mr Regan has done legal work for successive governments since 1981.
He said that he was one of the main legal advisers to the combined Bougainville leaders in the negotiations for the Bougainville Peace Agreement and on the making of the Bougainville Constitution.
President Momis said that since the establishment of the ABG, Presidents Joseph Kabui and James Tanis engaged him and again he has been asked to help with the ABG Mining law because of his long involvement in Bougainville constitution and legal issues and he once taught Mining Law at the University of Papua New Guinea.
He said that the aim of the ABG is to make sure we have the best possible advice.
The ABG President also said that the ABG is entirely satisfied that Mr. Regan has no links of any kind with Rio Tinto as if he had such links the ABG would immediately get rid of him.
He said that the allegation that Mr. Regan is interfering with Bougainville Affairs by advising ABG Mining Law is ridiculous as Mr. Regan is only acting on the directions of the ABG.
President Momis said that the work of Mr Regan is not limited to Mining as he works on so many other legal matters for the ABG including advising on our Council of Elders act and even the drafting of the MOU with NBC which M. Miringtoro praised when he signed it recently.
He said that the call for Mr. Regan to be deported is shameful and shows appalling ignorance of the requirements of PNG Law.
The President also said that if the member was not happy with the ABG and its policy it must not attack its advisers but instead talk to him as the ABG President of his cabinet colleagues.
He said that Mr. Miringtoro is one of several people who at different times in the past two or three years tried to ignore the wishes of the landowners and re-open the Panguna mine using companies other than BCL and questioned whether he was now attacking the ABG because he fears that such plans are threatened by the President making it clear to the Prime Minister that all decisions about the future of Panguna will only be made by the ABG.
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