BY LORETTA B MANELE

The Ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification (MMERE) is working on reviewing agreements pertaining to the Gold Ridge mining operation in Central Guadalcanal.

Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele shared this with local media at a press conference on Monday this week.

He was responding to a question on what the government is doing to ensure resource owners have the upper hand in relation to the recent incident at the Gold Ridge mining area.

Manele said Gold Ridge is an important national project but it is also important that key stakeholders like land and resource owners’ concerns are addressed.

He said on this note, the Ministry of Mines, the lead ministry in this sector (mining) have been working on reviewing agreements which are;

-Agreement between government and company

-Agreement between company and landowners

-Agreement between landowners and government

“These are three main agreements they are also subsidiary agreements that covers other communities downstream,” he said.

Manele said these are the key agreements that have to be in place and they have been informed by the Mines ministry that the agreements would be completed by the end of this month.

“Discussions have been underway between the landowner representatives and government and I do thank Guadalcanal Province for taking part in the dialogue on this particular matter,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the government through the Ministry of Mines will continue to remain engaged in terms of finding ways going forward to ensure that Gold Ridge is operating well.

“…..and that includes taking onboard and addressing the concerns of resource owners of Gold Ridge and other affected communities,” he said.

Photo: Supplied

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