Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) has successfully commenced its second phase of the Community Mine Continuation Agreement (CMCA) Extension Review Project last week including the concurrent staging of the Regional Meetings in Tabubil, Kiunga and Daru in the Western Province.
The Regional Meetings will span over 3 weeks to cover all the impact regions along the CMCA corridor to ensure the village representatives from each CMCA region are able to hear presentations from various OTML departments on programs and projects aimed at benefiting the communities from the mine’s life extension.
Other project stakeholders including the government departments, shareholders (KMHL, MRSM, MRCMCA, MROT2 represented by their trustee MRDC) and FRPG are also part of these meetings to ensure their participation and roles in the Ok Tedi project is understood and they are able to respond to any queries from the village leaders.
These Regional Meetings objectives include discussing review feedback from the first round of village meetings, preparing a draft regional development plan, preparing a draft position paper on the CMCA review, electing delegates for the working group and preparing for the next village meeting (#2) discussions.
These round of regional meetings follows the conclusion of the first phase of the CMCA Extension Review Project, which involved extensive village meetings across 158 CMCA villages over a span of seven weeks, which ended in March this year.
The village meetings were successful, achieving their primary objectives of disseminating information from the OTML management, informing communities about the CMCA Extension Review process, and facilitating the election of two village representatives from each community for the current regional and working group meetings with OTML.
Independent facilitators from Tanorama Limited who were previously engaged in the 2006 and 2007 Mid-Term review of the CMCA, and the 2010 to 2012 review of the CMCA 9th Supplemental Agreement, were engaged again for this project.
Manager Community Relations and Sustainability, Jeffery Tom, commended his team and the Independent Facilitators for successfully concluding the first phase with good feedback from the communities and said the second phase with the regional meetings were progressing as planned.
“Key aspect of the village and regional meetings is ensuring the Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) process was followed, and this is progressively evident,” Mr Tom said.
The CMCA Extension Review process includes a series of village meetings, regional meetings and working group meetings over the next few months It is anticipated that after all these processes are completed, the community would be better informed and able to present their final position papers for negotiations prior to the signing of the revised CMCA agreement towards the end of 2025. The revised agreement will be enacted as a Supplementary Agreement.
OTML operates on a social license granted by the communities through the CMCA Extension Agreement (11th Supplemental Agreement). As a responsible and transparent company, OTML ensures that communities provide Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for any agreements that it enters with OTML.
OTML progresses its CMCA Extension Review Project
