The Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) is calling for an improvement on how revised mining projects Memorandum of Agreements (MoA) are administered.
MRA Managing Director Philip Samar made this call when presenting six revised MoAs to the Mining Minister Byron Chan on Monday.
The revised MoAs are for Hidden Valley, Tolukuma, Ok Tedi, Simberi and Sinivit.
The only new mining project MoA is for Woodlark.
Samar said that there is definitely a need to improve on how these MOAs are administered.
“The negotiations, as difficult and challenging as they might be, is actually the easy part.
“The real challenge is, and has always been, for the various parties to these MOAs to fulfil and deliver on their various commitments.”
Samar added that the MRA is proposing that an open and transparent process be built into these respective MoAs.
He said this is to enable each MoA to be self-administered where an independent party is engaged under the respective MoAs to conduct an annual audit of how each of the parties have performed in terms of fulfilling their various commitments and to have this report made available publicly to the various stakeholders and the general public.
“A complimentary initiative given PNGs participation in the EITI protocols is for these MOAs to be made public documents.
“The MoA review process itself is a public process involving various stakeholders in numerous public forums and as such the final product itself should therefore be a document that the various stakeholders and the general public can have access to.”