The Papua New Guinea Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) also fell victim to the looting and arson, where its rented offices at Konedobu were burnt with some records destroyed last Wednesday evening.
A fire truck was on site and managed to contain the fire from spreading completely burning all the files. They were able to save the files which were stored in the compact shelves.
IPA managing director, Clarence Hoot has assured the business community and Government that the IPA’s entity records are safely stored on cloud, and files kept in the warehouses were hard copies of business information that are currently available on its online registry system.
He stated that business entities that have any issues are urged to contact the Registrar of Companies (ROC) for assistance.
“Let me assure the business community, the Government of the day and the general public that all companies and other entity records are available online and there is no need to panic and cause unnecessary doubts, as being published on social media. Records filed for entities registered before and after 2013, when the registry system went online are safe and secured on cloud. These includes files for the Intellectual Property Rights applications.”
The records maintained by the IPA at the warehouses are merely secondary records and companies are obligated to maintain original records of filings made to the ROC at their registered office.
“By law majority of the record that were destroyed were time bound as they were more than 10 years old. It is therefore not in anyways, a loss to companies and does not in any ways, affect the records and filing system of businesses in the country,” according to IPA.
However, this is a huge loss to the country, as IPA took pride in maintaining historical hardcopy records of every single business entity registered in the country and for the convenience of the business community.
“Business entities that have any issues are urged to contact the ROC for assistance. Pursuant to Section 397 of the Companies Act, the ROC can reregister a lost document if evidence is presented showing that they were previously registered with IPA,” reiterated Mr Hoot.
The IPA Offices in Port Moresby, Lae and Kokopo have been disrupted because of the riots and were forced to close operations for a couple of days for the priority safety of our staff and clients.
Meanwhile, IPA has given confidence to relevant heads of government agencies involved in restoring normalcy, saying that although this incident is a massive setback for the companies in general, there is hope to recover and continue doing business as usual into the future.