By Jim John
A local company in the North Fly District of Western Province is committed to supporting small scale alluvial business for locals.
The Ok Ti Stones Limited (OTSL) in Haidawogam village along Kiunga-Tabubil highway opened on Wednesday last week.
This company will help locals to sell raw or melted gold dust.
Chairman and Managing Director for Ok Ti Stones Limited, John Nakdaun says, the company was registered under Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) on the 19th of October 2020, aiming to buy gold dust from the sellers along Ok Tedi river in North Fly electorate including Strickland river, where gold pending sediments are found.
He says OTSL will commence its full operations starting next month (May 2021) and to start off, they will purchase gold at the raw price of K136.00 per gram and melted price at K195.00 per gram due to COVID-19 affecting the gold prices in overseas market globally.
North Fly MP, James Donald, officiated the launch and presented a cheque of K200,000 made available from the District Support Grant (DSG).
He says nothing good has been done in the past to cater for the welfare of the people and many resources were not managed well in the last thirty to forty years.
MP Donald reiterated that millions of Kina received from Ok Tedi Mining and other sources of revenue, have been spent unnecessarily resulting in no tangible changes in the district and the province at large.
In addressing the locals, he said little gained from the alluvial business must be invested into agriculture, SME programs or education to be economically independent should they want to see changes in the district and in the event that Ok Tedi Mine shuts down operations.
Chairmain, John Nakdaun, thanked the local MP for the support towards the local company saying the company’s mission is to help hard working people in the district, to sustain their livelihoods and one-day export gold overseas.
