Yesterday I was assisted by Governor GC Sir Ipatas, Hon M Makiba, Ambassador Lupari, Kumul Mining Holding Ltd’s MD in Peter Graham and State Solicitor Mr D Rolpagaera in securing a better deal for our country.
We spent whole day yesterday securing well for our country without compromising or sacrificing all of my government’s core values and principles.
Let me appreciate Mr Mark Bristow and his team from Barrick who came to negotiate hard for their company but also responded well to all our core issues I could not compromise.
Below are the principles I never compromised and secured for our country, subject to final touch ups.
⁃ SML remains under KMHL,
⁃ PNG to own majority of equity in the new JV,
⁃ PNG will make no concession on Taxes
⁃ all outstanding legacies are not conceded,
⁃ Barrick committed to raise capital for start up,
⁃ Incorporated JV with joint management presence, and
⁃ Barrick to phase out at an agreed time.
Mr Bristow is a hard negotiator for his company and shareholders and I am a hard negotiator for my shareholders, who are the 10million people of PNG.
And after hard long talk, he flew out at 9pm with the above as part of those agreed principles and Barrick’s team plus our SNT and KMHL will finalise what will go into the final agreement.
We want to do that at the earliest to reopen the mine whilst those issues we disagree can be arbitrarily or legally resolved.
I have not compromised my commitments to gaining more for Landowners and Provincial Government and our country and so far it looks good.
We now await the conclusion of finer details of negotiations between both sides.
The alternate to this will be fighting in court for a longer time and at the end of the road, we will still be needing a development partner for capital injection too, so we had to have this conversation incase we achieve our intentions of owning and opening the mine with consensus.
PMJM
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#Takebackpng,
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