landowners ready for review

Landowners ready for review

THE Panguna landowners are ready for a review of the Bougainville Copper Agreement (BCA).


A proposal is before the National Government on the issue, which is dependent on the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) returning to re-open the Panguna mine. But this will not happen until after the new agreement is agreed to.
This new BCA is scheduled to be signed as a supplemental agreement appended with the old BCA and the preferred time frame is next month to coincide with the pre-feasibility order of magnitude study report of BCL.
Lawrence Daveona, talking on behalf of the Panguna Landowners Association, said that the proposed action plan will include landowners having a reconciliation followed by a unanimous representation, approval from a majority of Bougainville’s national MPs, access to the mine to be restored (unrestricted and without any fears), all guns to be surrendered (Bougainville to be a gun-free zone), combatants to be paid two rates (one rate for each home-made gun surrendered and another for automatics), negotiations with the Me’ekamui for the removal of road blocks, youth training colleges to be established, Aropa airport and Arawa seaport to be opened and other issues such as equity transfer and the shares to be addressed.
“Our above analysis is based on the assumption that BCL gets into full production to the 1988 level after three years of the commencement of mining,” the planned proposal states.
But before this happens the following is what the landowners propose to take place:
* PLA elections;
* PLA reconciliations;
* BCA review awareness Bougainville wide;
* BCA review and its signing;
* National Government and ABG invites an independent environmental group to assess the damage to the environment on the tailings; n Genealogical studies carried out to determine landownership of the leases by independent anthropological experts;
* National Government, ABG, BCL and landowners talks on Panguna re-opening; and
* BCL send in a team to reassess the damage at the mine.
“The mine life, based on proven reserves is 14 years. But if the moratorium on exploration is lifted, the mine life will extend to about 30 years. Also, that will provide greater benefits of royalty to the new landowners in whose leases those areas exist. It is obvious that this will be the biggest step forward for Bougainville in their history and all Bougainvilleans need to be united in the pursuit of this goal,” the paper states.
Briefly the attached BCA review proposal focuses on benefits that were part of the 1989 National Government’s peace package offer which include the following:
* Share equity offer;
* Tax sharing offer arrangement (will be subject to the tax sharing arrangements under the Bougainville Peace Agreement);
* Royalties to SML landowners;
Other issues that need addressing will be;
* Non Renewable Resources Fund payment to SML landowners;
* Increases in the rates of Regional Occupation Compensation payments to all mine leases titleholders;
* Increases in rates of payment on Social Inconvenience Compensation payments;
* Payment of royalties on other precious metals that will be recovered such as Molybdenium, Silver, etc;
* Environmental issues and mine closure plan;
* Landowners and Bougainvilleans’ participation during the mining operations; and
* THE issues of landowner’s rights over the resources both on the land, below the land and under the sea per Section 23 of Bougainville Constitution.