LLGs to acquit royalties from Ramu Nickel mine

Local Level Government beneficiaries of royalty payments from the nickel and cobalt mine based in the province have been told to account for all annual funds.

Madang Provincial Administrator, Daniel Aloi; emphasised this last Wednesday at the second day of a five-days review of Ramu Nickel’s Memorandum of Agreement at Jais Aben Resort in Mdadng.

Commenting on a contentious point raised by local-level government presidents of the project’s impacted communities, regarding royalty payments, Mr Aloi highlighted that these funds are just a small fraction of many other benefits that they get from the project, and that there should not be too much talk about it.

“There are royalty funds that have been paid to LLGs and they are not being accounted for. I think that is something that will, and that should inform the next set of royalties that we must get.

“Royalties is just a small drop in the bucket and there is no need to dwell too much on it during our deliberations in this review.

“Our inability to return on the royalties that are given to us creates a lot of doubts amongst our investors." He said.

Mr Aloi further re- emphasised that whilst the beneficiaries are capable of getting better, optimum returns from the royalties they get, their scorecards over the years have not been encouraging enough.

Five impacted LLGs have been receiving royalty payments from Ramu Nickel, and they are Bundi [within the SML area], Gama, Usino, Astrolabe Bay, and Saidor.

Gama is a third LLG in the Usino-Bundi District.

Usino and Astrolabe Bay are situated along the corridor of the 100-plus-kilometre slurry pipeline that extends from the Special Mining Lease [SML] area in Bundi to the Refinery at Basamuk in the Saidor LLG, Raikos.

Ramu Nickel started commercial production in 2012, with the first royalties paid in 2018, backdating to 2013- 2017.