The residents of Central province and the nation’s capital Port Moresby should soon receive uninterrupted power supply from the Edevu Hydro Project in the upper Brown River in the Hiri Koiari district of Central province as the massive hydro dam prepares to come on line. This after the Prime Minister (PM) James Marape pushed the button to flood the valley floor with water to signify the final stages before the dam becomes operational. The significant ceremony took place on Friday 21st April at Edevu and was witnessed by the project developer, the landowners, and the provincial government and national government delegates. The new massive hydro plant, which was built from private investments from Chinese owned company- PNG Hydro Development Ltd, will supply 54megawatt of power to the Port Moresby power grid and from there it will be distributed to Central province, as per the arrangement. PM James Marape thanked the company for having confidence in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to set up a big operation like this dam to supply energy to the country, where it is needed. Perhaps the significance of this project was that it comes in line with what the government aims to achieve by 2030. “We are a nation in pursuit of development. In the power sector, we want our country by 2030, to have 70% of our country have access to cheap, reliable and even green energy,” said Marape. PNG Hydro Development Ltd Managing Director Mr. Allan Guo said the project took close to 15 years to come to this final stage and cost K650million. He said all these would not have been done without support; therefore, he extended his appreciation to the landowners of Edevu, the provincial and national government, and its partners for the support and approvals given to achieve this hydro project. The project received a lot of support from the leaders of all consecutive governments, with the current Marape- Rosso government providing desperately needed funds for the 132kVA transmission lines to make it a complete success. “In the last two years, over K200million worth of support was given to PNG Power and close to K100million was invested for the power line that will uplink power to the city (Port Moresby) and to the neighboring areas,” the PM explained the government support. Marape said that with the demand of energy increasing, power is a necessity for development and investments, and as such, his government will continue to support such investments in the country.

Fuel consumers should see the issue with fuel rationing in the city of Port Moresby ease up by this weekend when fuel distributor PUMA Energy receives its re- supply of fuel. The current fuel rationing carried out by PUMA in the city is due to the recent severe cyclonic weather in Northwest Australia, preventing the supply ship from heading out. According to PUMA Energy, the re-supply ship has been delayed by several days and is now planned for arrival on Saturday 22nd April to correct the Unleaded Petrol (ULP) shortage being experienced. “PUMA Energy is constantly monitoring our fuel supplies across PNG. We know exactly the volumes of ULP, Diesel and other oil products needed for the country.” “We hold large volumes of backup supplies that are sometimes called upon, or we may experience some rationing in severe and unexpected circumstances.” “This is one of those occasions, and we have implemented the appropriate steps to ensure minimal impact occurs to our customers in Port Moresby.” That is according to PUMA Energy Country Manager, Mr. Hulala Tokome. PUMA Energy further clarified that the implementation of the Unleaded Petrol rationing program is only for Port Moresby city and no other parts of the country have been affected. “I must stress that this is only Port Moresby and only Unleaded Petrol. The Rationing of ULP is from Wednesday until Saturday, 22nd April.” “The re-supply ship will arrive on Saturday, 22nd April, with our professional PUMA Energy team ready to receive the shipment and distribute to Port Moresby immediately, we will see normal supplies on Sunday 23 April.” “PUMA Energy distributes millions of litres of Unleaded Petrol, Diesel and JetA1 fuel across the nation every week covering airports, commercial operations and our retail network.” “Our national team of over 500 team members work around the clock to ensure communities are energized throughout PNG,” added Mr Tokome.

The BSP Financial Group Limited (BSP) is advising its customers that some of them will not be able to access the mobile banking services at this time as it continues to fix up its new Banking System glitches. In a notice today, BSP advised that the customer balance view function on BSP Mobile Banking *131# is unavailable at this time. The bank said that some customers may not be able to view their account and balance information. BSP team is working on fully restoring the services for customers to access. BSP once again apologizes for the inconveniences caused and thanked its customers for their patience and understanding.

The residents of Kerema town in Gulf province have been in total darkness for two weeks now following issues with the only PNG Power diesel generation in town. Initially, the issue was with the supply of fuel to the town after a portion of the road leading to Kerema from Central province was damaged due to the bad weather and affecting transportation of fuel. But now the issue is with the only power generator in town going out of action, that’s after the matter of fuel supply was addressed. PNG Power Limited (PPL) in a notice just this week confirmed this by saying that the capital of the Gulf province has been without power as a result of a total shutdown of electricity supply to homes, government institutions and business houses. “This is due to an unexpected mechanical failure on our only operational generator at our power station that is supplying the province.” The power company also said that its technical team is currently working on the fault and will notify as soon as the generator is operational; however, the residents in town claimed that there has not been a team yet on ground attending to this matter. The main places affected by this blackout include the general hospital, the provincial police headquarters, schools and the provincial administration. Meanwhile, those with standby generators have been requested to utilize them during this time.

The Chief Secretary to Government, Ivan Pomaleu, announces today to the People of Papua New Guinea that Tuesday, 18th April 2023, is declared a public holiday in respect of the Late Sir Rabbie Namaliu’s State Funeral. Chief Secretary Pomaleu said this holiday was recently approved by the National Executive Council to give time to public servants and the general public to pay their last respects to the fourth Prime Minister of PNG. The Late Right Honourable, Sir Rabbie Langanai Namaliu, GCL, KCMG, died of a sudden illness on Friday, 31st of March 2023 at the age of 75, leaving behind a public service, political and diplomatic legacy that is yet to be matched. In his distinguished public service career, he served as the Chairman of the Public Service Commission for three years (1976 – 1979) and in the lead up to self-determination in 1975, he served as the Principal Private Secretary (1974 – 1975) to the Chief Minister and the first Prime Minister, Sir Michael Thomas Somare. Sir Rabbie was the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1982 – 1984 and negotiated a Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Corporation with Indonesia to address the issue of incursions of the Indonesian Military into Papua New Guinea and the influx of refugees from West Papua, which at that time was creating a humanitarian crisis in PNG. “We now enjoy a peaceful relationship with Indonesia.” He was also instrumental in bringing on board the Australian Funded Scholarship Scheme, enabling a lot of Papua New Guineans to study in Australia to this day. Sir Rabbie became the fourth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 1988 – 1992 after serving briefly as the Leader of the Opposition in 1988. He also served as the Speaker of Parliament from 1994 – 1997. “We pay homage to our great leader, Sir Rabbie, for his contributions in nation building,” he said.

The Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loans Society Limited (NCSL) has started processing members’ fund transfers to BSP accounts, but it’s being done manually. This was confirmed by NCSL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Vari Lahui this afternoon. “All our payments have now been processes but it’s a manual process because BSP still has some issues with its system.” The CEO said the outstanding payments to customers totaling K4.6million for one week, is now being processes for the NCSL members who are BSP account holders. Just last week, NCSL was unable to process their members’ withdrawals or loan drawdowns to BSP bank accounts following the BSP Financial Group Limited implementation of its new Banking System. The NCSL CEO then, said that they continued to work closely with the BSP team to have this matter sorted out. A short notice was also put out by NCSL today stating that all transfers to BSP accounts made from Thursday 06th April to Friday 14th April, have now been manually process and that members that made the transfer during this period from their Poro account to BSP account, should have access to these funds now. Caption: .

After two years in the Port Moresby Australian Football League (AFL) competition, the Daltron Alavana Swans club from Hula is looking to expend its participation in the competition, but it will need the support of the folks back home. The club’s new coach, Mr. Pepe Kila said that the club needs the support of the youths in the village in order to be successful. “I want all the young people in Hula and Kalo villages to come support us in the club play in the league,” he said. “I just want the young guys hanging around and doing nothing to come play AFL with us.” The coach said they are looking at including a women’s team as well for the club in the competition in the near future because currently, the club has only a men’s team in the A grade division. He added that this is an opportunity as well for the young people to make something for themselves in the sport of AFL. This is because just recently one of the young players from the club was selected by the AFL team to further his opportunities in the AFL junior programs. The Alavana Swans Club comes from the big village of Hula in the Central province, but plays in the Port Moresby competition because there is no established AFL competition in the province itself. Meanwhile, the club received new player uniforms all thanks to its new sponsor, Daltron. The club was presented with the new uniforms on Saturday 15th April just before the kick off of the 2023 Moni Plus Port Moresby AFL season.  

Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) now has a new boss after the mining company’s Board made the appointment recently. The Board of OTML appointed Mr Kedi Ilimbit as the company’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), which comes into effective today Monday 17th April. Chairman of the Board, Mr Jeffrey Innes said that Mr Ilimbit was appointed following an international search campaign and a thorough assessment of candidates. Mr Ilimbit was originally employed by OTML from 1995 to 2004 starting as a graduate mechanical engineer and working in various roles. He left OTML and worked at various mines in Australia including Blackwater, Peak Downs, Saraji, Prominent Hill, Cannington and Koolyanobbing, in senior and managerial roles. He returned to OTML in 2015 and has worked in Mine Maintenance, Processing, Asset Management and Operations & Community Support and is the current Acting CEO. “The Board looks forward to working with Kedi and the leadership team to ensure the continuing success of Ok Tedi and the satisfaction of all our stakeholders’ expectations,” Mr Innes said.

The Alluvial Mining Sector in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has grown significantly under the Mineral Resources Authority’s (MRA) supervision and care to contribute over K600million per annum in export revenues. MRA Acting Managing Director, Mr. Jerry Garry said the MRA run small scale mining college in Wau in the Morobe province, has trained and certified over 6, 000 artisanal miners since its establishment and he attributed the excellent growth of the sector to the efforts of the training college and its hardworking team. “When you look at the statistics, they are contributing more significantly then some of the established industries we have in this country,” said Mr. Garry. “The alluvial gold mine sector apparently put out less than K100million export revenue until MRA stepped in and brought the export revenue from the alluvial sector to K640million per annum.” He said the sector has contributed more significantly to the country than some of the established industries in PNG. Mr. Garry also said that the success of the alluvial gold mining sector is one of the success stories of MRA since its establishment 15 years ago.

The BSP Financial Group Limited (BSP) has admitted that the implementation of the new system has seen issues pop up, but customers have been assured that the BSP team will continue to work around the clock to fully address these technical issues faced this week. “BSP would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding while we address some technical issues that have impacted our service standards,” announced BSP Group CEO Mr. Mark Robinson. “We understand that for some customers, your recent banking experience during the implementation of BSP’s new Banking System has not been as smooth as we had hoped.” This week alone the interruptions to BSP banking services include delays in processing transactions that has impacted payments and available balances, longer than usual wait times due to longer processing times in the branches and while contacting Customer Call Centre, and intermittent availability of the BSP Internet Banking service. “Our dedicated teams are working with our global vendor partners around the clock to address these issues and obtain the service levels you deserve.” “Our 87 Branches, 320 ATMs, EFTPoS, Agency Banking, Mobile Banking and Internet Banking are available to serve you across PNG.” “We apologise for the inconveniences caused and thank you for your patience and understanding.”

The Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) now has access to mineral data from mining operations in the country in real time to ensure transparency and accuracy in mining operations following the launching of its new Mineral Production Data Repository Hub on Friday 14th April. MRA Acting Managing Director, Mr. Jerry Gerry, said the new system should enable full access to what goes on in the mining sites from the crusher to the plant and the exporting of mineral ores. "This will give us additional capability to monitor what leaves the country, we can ascertain what profits paid for, proper taxes, royalty passed to the nation,” said the acting managing director. The new system sees the MRA have its officers sit in the hub at the Mining Haus in Port Moresby, where they have access to the same data in real time, which their counter-parts at mine sites will have access to. The new system not only allow the MRA and the government to independently monitor the minerals mined and exported. It will also give mining companies greater leverage on their transparency scale in the international stage. It will ensure there is transparency and all minerals leaving the country are accounted for. However, currently the live feed is only implemented in three mining sites in the country, which are Ok Tedi, Lihir and Simberi mines. “The next two mines that we want to tap into are Ramu (Ramu Nickel) and Kainantu (K- 92), they’ve given us the green light to go ahead,” he said. However, Mr. Gerry revealed that the systems of these two mines are little bit complicated then Ok Tedi, Lihir and Simberi, but he has confidence that the MRA engineers will have the live feed installed eventually. “I’m very confident that after Simberi, they will upload Ramu and Kainantu onto our system.” “By the end of this year, we should have all of them locked up in our system,” he said. Meanwhile, the new hub system is transforming the way the MRA monitors what goes out of the country and what is being received. This is because in the last 40 years, mining companies have been submitting a form to MRA stating the amount of mineral they have been exporting. However, the MRA as the regulator has had no way of verifying the data given in the forms, but this has changed as of Friday.

Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loans Society (NCSL) Limited is still unable to process their members’ withdrawals or loan drawdowns to BSP bank accounts at this time, but it continues to work towards fixing this issue. NCSL’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Vari Lahui said they continued to work closely with the BSP Financial Group Limited team to sort this matter out as soon as possible. “We started the payment process, but there are some members (NCSL members) that are being left out of receiving their funds. So, we are working closely with BSP on this.” The CEO explained that NCSL made the payments as per the withdrawal requests from members; however, the payment process for members who are BSP customers did not go through. That is why NCSL asked BSP as to why this has happened and has since been closely liaising with the BSP team to get some positive results, hopefully by this weekend. Mr. Lahui also said that this week alone NCSL made a total payment of K1.2million in members’ withdrawals; therefore, the savings and loans society would like to see this issue cleared out as soon as possible so that their members can access their funds. The CEO said that NCSL will advise its valued members on the outcome as soon as this matter is resolved.