Journalism workshops and trainings, pacific news, world news and in-depth analysis Outrage over BCL shares, Bougainville President Momis slams miner’s refusal
5:20 pm GMT+12, 30/06/2016, Papua New Guinea
Bougainville President John Momis is furious at Rio Tinto’s "unilateral" decision to transfer its 53.8 per cent stake in Bougainville Copper Ltd to an independent trustee and involving Waigani as an equal majority shareholder.
The trustee Equity Trustees Limited will distribute the shares between the National Government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government so that both will have 36.4 per cent shares each in the Panguna mine. The National Government already has a 19 per cent stake.
The remaining shares are held by small shareholders in Europe.
President Momis said yesterday that Rio Tinto had failed to consult his Government about distributing its shares. “At meetings with senior Rio officials, in July 2015 and February 2016, I warned strongly against transfer of Rio’s shares to PNG. Bougainvilleans cannot accept National Government control over the future of Panguna through either majority or equal shareholding in BCL,” he added.
He said Bougainville is open to PNG remaining a BCL shareholder, saying it could assist in finding responsible partners and financiers for possible future operations at Panguna.
“But we cannot accept Rio Tinto’s interference in seeking to give PNG equal control over Panguna. There is no possibility of progress on resolving the future of Panguna on that basis.
“Rio Tinto has shown arrogance and ignorance in ignoring my warning. Sitting in their comfortable London offices, they have interfered in Bougainville’s affairs by deciding PNG should have equal control of BCL.
“Bougainvilleans are united in rejecting what Rio Tinto seeks to thrust upon us.”
He said he would be seeking “the earliest possible meeting with Prime Minister O’Neill to discuss how best to defuse the dangerous situation created by Rio’s decision on its shares in BCL.”
Rio Tinto has been reviewing its BCL shareholding for almost two years. The review resulted in Rio deciding to end its investment in BCL, which ran the giant copper and gold mine at Panguna from 1972 to 1989, under the 1967 Bougainville Copper Agreement (BCA).
Meanwhile, Bougainville President John Momis has expressed deep anger at Rio Tinto’s refusal to accept responsibility for the environmental and other damages caused by the Panguna Copper mine in Central Bougainville.
This comes as Rio Tinto announced it is divesting its shares in Bougainville Copper Limited, former operator of the mine.
Momis met with two Rio Tinto officials in Port Moresby on Wednesday in what has been described by an insider as a "very tense meeting".
Momis said Thurday that in previous meetings he had insisted that Rio Tinto accept responsibility for mining legacy issues.
“When I met their officials last night (Wednesday) in Port Moresby, they flatly rejected any responsibility for their contribution to the damage done by the Panguna Mine, he said.
“Rio’s officials gave me two reasons for not accepting responsibility for mine impacts. First, Rio operated under the PNG law of the day. Second, they were forced out of Panguna by the conflict.
“But the truth is Rio Tinto generated huge revenues from what we all now know were the terrible injustice of its Bougainville mining operations.”
Momis said that the mine shut down in 1989 only because anger over that injustice generated demands for a renegotiated agreement.
He said that it is now clear the Bougainville Copper Agreement (BCA) under which Panguna was operated was deeply unjust.
“It ignored environmental damage and social impacts. Only a tiny share of mine revenue was distributed to landowners and to the North Solomons provincial government.
“The gross injustice of the BCA has since been recognised by Rio. As a result it made major changes to its own policies, especially in relation to landowners.
“It accepted new standards of sustainable development as a founder of the International Council on Mining and Metals. Rio is now deeply hypocritical in its blatant disregard of the higher corporate responsibility standards it says it has adopted.
“Now Rio Tinto proposes to walk away from responsibility for the effects of the injustice of its highly profitable operations.
The President said he will be writing to the managing director of Rio Tinto asking him to reconsider not only the Rio decision about its shares, but also its refusal to deal with its Panguna legacy responsibilities.
“I am also writing to the International Council of Metals and Mining asking them to end Rio Tinto’s membership because of its failure to honour the ICMM’s10 Principles for Sustainable Development Performance,” he said.
Es sind 2 Monate für den Transfer der shares durch ``independent trustee`` vorgesehen. D.h. da ist noch nichts in trockenen Tüchern und erst innerhalb dieser Zeitspanne werden Entscheidungen fallen . So gesehen ist doch noch alles offen und gut für ein paar Überraschungen auch wenn das heute hier der eine oder andere nicht so sieht.Die Zeit läuft und ab Montag geht es weiter. :-)
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