Projects funded under the Tax Credit Scheme (TCS) between the State and the resource companies are determined by the Government.
Oil Search Managing Director, Peter Botten, said this when questioned why the TCS was used to fund projects outside provinces in which resource projects were in.
The question was raised by Madang Open MP, Bryan Kramer, who said the original intention of the TCS was to provide road infrastructure for project areas.
“We’ve adopted a practice now where projects which were supposed to be expanded in rural development in the project area are creeping up in Port Moresby,” said Kramer.
Botten said that decision was the Government’s prerogative.
“We actually don’t choose the projects and really it’s up to government to direct us and ask us whether we want to provide the process for a Tax Credit Project,” Botten said.
Oil Search Board member and President of the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, Gerea Aopi, said all TCS projects have been decided in a transparent process.
“Tax Credit is 7.5 percent of tax, so it’s a tax that we would’ve paid that we are retaining to implement that project. And there’s a process that we follow in terms of national planning department and it goes to the provincial governments through the various stages before it comes back to us before implementation,” Aopi said.
“But in the past, a lot of people have seen this as getting value for money because you actually have a project implemented and this goes through a normal procurement process, goes through a normal tendering process so it’s open and transparent.”