The President of Bougainville, John Momis, says his government is going ahead with legal action against mining giant Rio Tinto over the destruction caused by the Panguna Mine.
Rio Tinto was the majority owner of Bougainville Copper Ltd which ran the mine for 20 years before it was shut by a civil war fostered by environmental and social damage attributed to the mine.
Rio Tinto's shares in BCL were given to the Papua New Guinea and Bougainville governments and the multi-national has indicated it has no obligations to clean up the damage.
Mr Momis, whose government is now the biggest shareholder in BCL, told Don Wiseman they still intend to prosecute Rio Tinto over its Panguna legacy.
President of the autonomous Bougainville government, John Momis.
Photo: RNZI
Transcript
JOHN MOMIS: We are going to pursue this matter as a moral issue because they cause so much damage and just think they can get away scot-free. But be that as they may, the landowners have always said they will work with the devil they know rather than with a new devil. But this devil that they knew is now the devil that we own actually because we are now part shareholders of Bougainville Copper. So, Bougainville Copper is no longer the same Bougainville Copper that was operating before and the landowners in our recent meetings have repeated their commitment to work with BCL and in fact under our law Bougainville Copper has the first right of refusal but in recent times some members of one of the associations have expressed, under pressure from another company from Australia, that they don't want the BCL to come back but they are totally outnumbered by the eight landowner associations - they are just one association that is expressing some disagreement. But the ABG is committed to give BCL - not only the right of first refusal but to work with it and try to come up with a new regime because we are now not only the regulators but we are also the shareholders in BCL. [But] we want to know what the Prime Minister wants to do with the 17 percent given to them by Rio Tinto by which the Prime Minister promised, made a public statement, that this 17.4 percent would go to the landowners and the landowners have made their position pretty clear, and that is to give it to ABG, which is their government.
DON WISEMAN: BCL has itself come out in the last few weeks and laid out a timeline. It thinks it can be producing gold and copper by about 2025. Is that how you would see it?
JM: Unfortunately I was not here for the initial discussions but I've had a discussion with them recently and I believe so. I believe that, first of all, ABG is committed to work with BCL and the landowners are also committed despite what a few landowners are saying who have been unduly influenced by another company which is interested in developing the Panguna mine. But we don't think they have - well we have to submit them to due diligence checks and at this time we don't think they have the financial capacity and the financial capacity to open Panguna.
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