The President speaks On my last day in Bougainville, I meet...

The President speaks

On my last day in Bougainville, I meet President John Momis at Buka’s minute airport. Right from the get-go, he contradicts Masono’s position and corresponding claims that BCL has the support of the Bougainville government.
‘We currently do not have a preferred partner. We will ask people who are interested to submit their applications and we will scrutinize their applications quite stringently,’ he says, adding: ‘We are open to discussions with BCL but there’s a whole new dimension, a new platform, today. They need to win the support of landowners who own the resources.’
I ask him what he thinks about RTG’s bid to redevelop Panguna, and of rumours that China is eyeing the mine. (Momis was formerly PNG’s ambassador to China and is said to keep close ties with Beijing.) ‘We are not sure about [RTG],’ he explains. ‘They have to convince us first [and] I don’t know if they are in a strong position. As for the Chinese, they are not [in the picture] right now. But we are open for business.’
And so the race for Panguna’s riches continues with no clear frontrunner. But whichever company wins, two things appear certain.
First, if Panguna reopens, its riches will inevitably end up in the pockets of oligarchs, intermediaries, shareholders and hopelessly corrupt officials instead of a sovereign wealth fund where it belongs. The ‘resource curse’ or ‘paradox of plenty’ dictates that countries abundant in fossil fuels and minerals tend to have less economic growth and democracy than countries with fewer natural resources.