Photo: Supplied/Barrick Gold
Businesses in Porgera town, adjacent to the soon to be re-opened Porgera Mine, are pleading for financial help from the Papua New Guinea government.
In 2020 the mine in Enga Province was closed when the government and Barrick Gold couldn't reach agreement on a new lease.
Those negotiations have taken three years and now the mine is close to starting again. But Nick Pakea of the Porgera Chamber of Commerce said all local businesses struggled through the closedown, with some forced to shut down for good.
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The government has promised funding to the provincial government but Pakea wants some of this directed to the businesses which have struggled.
"So when it shut down its operations in 2020 our businesses went as well. Just imagine the physical workforce went home and then the power was cut off and the cash flow.
"Most cash flow is generated from the mine, so in the past three years we have been facing a very critical time and we have been facing a lot of challenges."
Pakea said the government's slogan for the past four years of "Shorten Pain for Long Term Gain" for Porgera businesses has become "Long Term Pain"
He said some of the businesses are gone for good so the government must provide compensation so those businesses still operating can recoup what they lost.
In addition Pakea is looking for money to be made available through the National Development Bank into order to reactivate the Porgera businesses and for the Enga povincial government to use some of the funding it is receiving to clear outstanding bank loans for the businesses.
Last month the PNG Prime Minister, James Marape, told a development forum in Wabag that "under my administration, the government is committed to ensuring a more favourable arrangement in the New Porgera, building upon the insights gained from the past three decades."
He called on all stakeholders to engage in the development forum proceedings.
In April the PNG Government reached agreement with Barrick Gold and its partner Zijin, to re-open the mine, with those businesses taking a minority shareholding.
The chief executive of Barrick Gold, Mark Bristow, told RNZ Pacific earlier this year that remedial work was already underway but that the companies remained concerned about the ongoing lawlessness in Enga, and particularly around Porgera.
Much of this lawlessness is tribal fighting and the government is now promising to establish an elite force within the police which will be invested with power to use lethal force.