President John L. Momis has told the Bougainville House of Representatives that a decision will need to be made on the moratorium on mining exploration in the future.
He said that the Bougainville Executive Council (BEC), with advice from the Bougainville Mining Advisory Council, has the responsibility for making ultimate decision about the moratorium, but will not do so in isolation.
President Momis wants to see the issue discussed publicly to help inform whether the moratorium should be retained, partially lifted or fully lifted and implored his fellow Members of Parliament to actively seek out the views of their constituents.
“The BEC has not made any decision about the future of the ‘moratorium’,” President Momis told the House of Representatives on Tuesday 5 April.
“We are not coming to you with a proposed decision, instead, we are asking this House to debate what we should do.
“We are doing this to generate broad public discussion of the issues involved.”
The moratorium on mining exploration was imposed in 1971 in response to concerns communicated by Bougainvilleans and was been retained by the Bouganville Mining (Transitional Arrangements) Act 2014 and the Bougainville Mining Act 2015 which followed.
“Ideally we want to have a major Bougainville-wide public consultation and awareness campaign about issues of such great importance,” President Momis continued, “but because of our serious financial difficulties, that is not an option for us at the moment.”
Momis wants the second parliamentary debate on the issue to be inclusive of the variety of views from the Bougainvillean communities.
(Source http://www.bougainville24.com/bougainville-resources/people-must-inform-mining-moratorium-decision-says-president)
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