The New Ireland Governor is calling on the National Government to immediately release the development grants under the Lihir Gold Mining Agreement, to the provincial government.
Governor Byron Chan in a press conference this afternoon in Port Moresby city, called for the release of the K300 million and paid immediately to the New Ireland Provincial Government and the people of New Ireland.
Governor Chan said the Prime Minister, Treasurer and the Finance Minister must fulfil the States commitment by releasing this outstanding development grants, or what the governor stated as ‘credit money’ owed to the people of New Ireland.
The governor made this call following the announcement by Newmont Lihir and the Internal Revenue Commission on the 30th of July, of the K633 million second corporate income tax installment.
This brings Newmont’s corporate income tax contribution across the first two quarters, up to approximately K1.484 billion. This is way better than Newmont’s expected contribution in the order of K1.5 billion to K2.0 billion in corporate income tax for the full year.
“I just want to remind the Government and MRA that these are commitments owed to the people of New Ireland. This is not a new project, these are monies, calculated on productions by the company, and for the people of new Ireland province that needs to be paid.
Governor Chan strongly emphasized that the state has failed to honor its commitment to settle the province’s Special Support Grants (SSG) and Infrastructure Development Grants (IDG), totaling K219.04 million, which is captured in the provincial government’s 2026 approved budget. He adds that, with the other outstanding MoA development grants, the outstanding development grants owed by the State to the people of New Ireland stands at K300 million in total.
“We just want what is owed to us must be paid. We still have outstanding projects that need to be worked on. We want to fix our roads, we want to fix our bridges, we want to fix our transport infrastructure, and we want to fix our building infrastructure for our schools, colleges, and tertiary institutions. We want to rehabilitate our agriculture and also fund our SME programs. All these are captured under our approved budget,” said Governor Chan.
According to Governor Chan, the outstanding SSG’s and IDG’s stands at a whooping K1.4 million that dates back to 2010. However, he is asking for only K300 million in outstanding grants to be released back to the New Ireland Provincial Government.
