Prime Minister James Marape acknowledged the Coffee Industry Corporation Ltd (CICL) for utilizing Government fund to build a complex that can cost K100 million for.
Marape said this during the opening of a new K10.6 million Coffee Exports Office Complex in Lae recently. “Such building could have cost K100 million, yet, this demonstrates the wise use of the limited funds provided by the Government to CICL. I thank CICL CEO Charles Dambui and the CICL team for their strategic leadership in wisely using limited funds to achieve such a major project. CICL shows us all that we can build major projects, if we wisely used limited funds like they have done.” He said.
PM Marape went on to challenge the districts, provinces and government departments and agencies who had been given hundreds of millions of government funding over many years, but have achieved little.
“One of the reasons why Papua New Guinea has not progressed over the last 49 years is that we have been using funds without achieving anything. This is something that we should all be ashamed of.” PM Marape said.
Following his address Prime Minister Marape expressed his support for CICL by presenting K10 million to CICL CEO Mr. Charles Dambui to support coffee industry in the country.
The newly inaugurated coffee exports building is set to become the central hub for crucial operations, including contract registration, shipment notification, contract verification, physical coffee inspection, sampling, recording/logging, quality analysis, export certification, and overseeing the movement of coffee to the wharf for shipment. The opening of this complex is deemed timely as China recently lifted all bio-security restrictions on agricultural produce from Papua New Guinea, including coffee which is an opportunity for the country’s agricultural sector to expand trade relations with China and other global markets.
