BusinessThursday 10th January 2013Leaders oppose Mt Kare ‘paper...

Business
Thursday 10th January 2013
Leaders oppose Mt Kare ‘paper LOs’

THE people living on the fringes of Enga and Hela, where the soon to be mined Mt Kare gold-silver project is situated, view the development of the mine project as vital to opening up economic corridors for the isolated communities there.
Basic government services have never reached these people since Independence and they are worried that ‘paper landowners’ will abuse this opportunity and scrape up the mining deal for self-interest.
Spokesmen for Hetapula Association Inc David Tabi and Mark Tulija jointly echoed this sentiment over the weekend during the company’s meeting in Port Moresby.
“Tribal warfare had hindered our progress. Most of our children are uneducated because schools are rundown. Our mothers are giving birth in the jungles because the nearest referral hospitals are in Porgera and Tari, some 50 and 70 kilometres away respectively.
“To retain all other basic services like schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and electricity, we view the Mt Kare project as the only ‘golden chance’ that would come only once. If we misuse it for self-interest motivated greed, our poor people will suffer,” Tabi and Tulija jointly said.
Lately, a lot of sham landowners in Mt Kare, like Nogo Gris Holdings Ltd and Mt Kare Resource Owners Association, to name a few, have popped up like mushrooms as IndoChine Mining Subsidiary Summit Development is gearing up to have the mid-sized high grade gold-silver mine go into full operations by 2015.
“Why are these landowners emerging from nowhere when we have the umbrella landowner association in place? Hetapula Association is here to represent the interest of all those legitimate landowning groups from Mt Kare. Hetapula has been the duly recognised mouthpiece of Mt Kare since day one and it is still here.”
Hetapula had existed during the initial alluvial mining days when CRA-Rio Tinto was the developer of Mt Kare.
“Hetapula had delivered fairly and equitably to the people and it still has been bestowed full recognition by the state through Mineral Resources Authority (MRA),” the landowner leaders said.
They expressed concern over egoistic deeds of certain self-proclaimed landowners whose main intention is to “steal
what is rightfully owned by Heli, Pujaro, Tawini and Lanopa clans.”
“The state and the developer know who are thieves and who the real owners are. We are the legitimate custodian of EL 1093, and our position is clear. We are doing it for the benefit of all landowners from both Enga and Hela because we all relate to the four major clans.”
With Hetapula on board, the government had conducted social mapping, landowner identification, land demarcation and vetting process already during the alluvial mining days and these records haven’t disappeared, they said.

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