West Papua:What Do We Know About How Much Freeport Produces?

What Do We Know About How Much Freeport Produces?

Ubi, 22 June, 2011 - It is still very difficult for the Mimika district administration to get information about the quantity of gold and copper produced by Freeport-Indonesia and how much is exported via Portsite, Amamapare.

The head of the mining, energy and minerals department of the Mimika administration, said:

'We dont know anything about the quantity of gold, copper and other minerals produced daily by Freeport and this is because we do not have free access to the company to be able to control the level of production every day.'

He said that the administration did once charge two of its employees to oversee export activity in Amamapare, but after we had given them the task, the two men were unfortunately shifted other posts. [Could this have been a deliberate action.?]

This is a big problem. Anyone charged with scrutinising exports and imports would have to be a specialist. They would need to have a special certificate for controlling goods and services for both exports and imports..

All this has an impact on obtaining clarification about the quantity of minerals produced every year. How can this possibly be synchronised with the information received by the authorities in Jakarta? It's all just a game because the people at the centre get data about gold and copper production which comes directly from the company, PTFI.

The department of mines in Jakarta only gets information from one side. 'This doesn't lead to any accuracy. Anyone with bad intentions can easily manipulate the data. Although lots of stuff is exported, they report a very low figure.'

So the question is: who else but the company can know anything about the quantity of material it produces every year? Only the PTFI.

[COMMENT: This once again highlights the extraordinary powers that the US company has been given to keep a tight control over how much it exploits of Papua's abundant natural resources, with the Papuan people not only left in the dark but also left living in poverty while Freeport makes a fortune from its investments in West Papua. TAPOL]

ENDS

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