Basil hits back at Mauri

Chairman of Nakuwi Landowners’ Association Rex Mauri has been accused of being completely ignorant about court proceedings by Watut River landowners against the Hidden Valley Joint Venture.

Bulolo MP Sam Basil said this after criticisms and accusations leveled at him by Mauri in the Post-Courier.

 "Mr Mauri is completely ignorant about the commenced court proceedings by the Watut landowners against the Hidden Valley Joint Venture, “he said.

“His statements are not only factually incorrect but are likely politically motivated and were no doubt written by the miner.

 “It is always to the best interest of any developer in PNG to make the landowners and their political leaders to fight each other, and the more they fight, the more the developer walks away.

“So it is not worth fighting with Mr Rex Mauri.”

Basil said he was all set to fight for the disadvantaged communities, and whether it was a single person or 10,000 people, he would still fight for their rights.

 Basil also urged Mauri to reserve all political statements against him for 2012 polls and it was bad to drag and compare the financial might of MMJV against the district and national government’s grants.

 “It is also common knowledge that the national government is incapable of maintaining the services of PNG Royal Constabulary due to continuous lack of annual budgetary funding,” he said.

“Successive governments through the national executive council always compensate new projects with different types of concessions to help fund law and order and other essential services, to mainly provide for their establishment and to cover for the national government’s shortfalls.

 “This can be seen on future Hidden Valley special support grant (SSG) and tax credit funds, which has been booked against the MMJV’s K8 million annual funding of the Bulolo national highway,  because the works department is incapable of maintaining the Lae to Hidden Valley highway.

 "There is no injunction in place as Mr Mauri says.

“The Watut River landowners are suing Hidden valley Joint Venture for damages as a result of the gross environmental destruction to the Watut River and surrounding land caused by the miner. 

“They also want the miner to rehabilitate the river as their dumping of wastes into the river has buried the alluvial gold among other destructions and is preventing water flow."

 "Mr Mauri is also incorrect as the Watut River landowners are outside the mining lease area and have not received any of the so-called benefits from the mine."

 "The lawsuit is about making the miner clean up its mess, not about stopping the mine.

“The miner has done nothing to rehabilitate the river in the past year and must be forced to do so. 

“The Watut River landowners are also adamant to make sure through these court proceedings that this sort of accident by the miner never happens again."

  Basil made these comments in response to a media statement issued by Mauri on Jan 17, 2011.

 "Mr Mauri doesn’t care about the rights of people living downstream and they are in thousands and not in 100's as claimed by Rex,” he said.

Basil also extended his invitation Mauri to the courtroom on the set date to see for himself how many Watut River communities from Bulolo to Labu would attend in numbers.

 He also stressed that many of the 3, 000 landowners Mauri claimed he represented were complaining about their royalty payments, which were as low as K13 per month.

“The chairman of Nakuwi Landowners’ Association, current or future must fight together with my office for greater percentages of royalties when the Hidden Valley MOA is up for review,” Basil said.

“An increase from 2% to 5% must be asked for while 3% of the 5% must be set aside to fund the landowners’ royalties alone.

 “The Biangai and the Watut people must benefit more from the royalties then any other government entities because they are the owners of the resources being dug up and will remain with big holes after the mine life.”

 Basil is the landowners’ representative plaintiff is the court proceedings and confirmed he had instructed the Watut River landowners' lawyers to advise on whether Mauri's statements constituted a contempt of court, “as they appear to be designed to influence or intimidate the plaintiffs into discontinuing the proceedings”.

 If so, Basil has instructed the lawyers to charge Mauri with contempt of court.