Porgera Mine employees go to polls

Porgera mine operator Barrick (Niugini) Limited (“BNL”) allowed time for employees to cast their votes on July 7, at Porgera in Enga.

Many employees including contracted employees turned up and voted. 

Prior to polling, in the presence of the mine’s commissioned security officers accompanied by the community relations officers, mine site presiding officer Ronnie Pyatti broke open the seals of the ballots boxes for Enga Regional and the Lagaip-Porgera Open electorates.

Ms Pyatti explained that the ballot papers and the boxes were being shared between the mine site and the public servants at Paiam town.

She also reminded everyone of what they should do to avoid casting informal votes.

“Do not just write the number and leave it because the name will supersede the number. The number can be changed. Anything can happen to the number. Someone can change the number”, Ms Pyatti warned. 

While Porgera station looked to carry on business as usual, polling at Paiam town took place just opposite the Paiam Police station where many people sat on the roadsides and observed as members of the security forces looked busy controlling the queues into the polling station.

There were a total of 21 electoral teams for the 17 polling stations within the Porgera Rural Local Level Government (LLG) area and the four stations under the Porgera Urban LLG, which included the mine site.

 

Author: 
Press statement