Leonard Fong Roka
Driving through the industrial areas of the old BCL mine,
Panguna and Loloho port today, there is hardly any structure frames of those
massive workshops, crushers, plants, and other smaller equipment, and yards of
spare parts and old material storage areas. All that now remains is a few brick
walls, rusting irons, concrete drainage systems, and the vast gravel and rock
surface area of Panguna.
All these tons of BCL property went overseas as scrap metal
to the benefit of us the Panguna people and a few former BRA elites around
Kieta.
Scrap metal business came to Bougainville around 1995 on the
small scale but erupted into a massive scale just after 2005 on. The earlier
small scale operations captured foreign opportunists and genuine agents and
buyers thus catapulting the business up.
There were Koreans, Indians, and Chinese groups and even a
few non-Asian brokers, and all the market destinations were Asian. A few known
market destinations were in Korea, Vietnam, India, China, and Malaysia.
And in Panguna, especially, company names and groups sprang
us and all specialized in buying and collecting scrap metal; a few had rights
over areas within the mine site, and even the former BRA had their own groups
alongside the Meekamui groups. But most in common, in terms PNG law had no IPA (Investment
Promotion Authority) or BCL authorization to exploit BCL property and export
it.
I worked for about two years, 2008 to 2009, with a local group
called Doborubu Scrap Metal Group (DSMG) that was based only in Panguna as an
on-site assistant administration officer assisting our operation boss and as a tallyman
keeping records of the scrap metal loads we made every day.
DSMG was owned by the Pirurari villagers who owned most
lands in the Kusito area of the mine site. In this area, the DSMG just collected
any metal and in others like the concentrator, the pit, the town areas.
The DSMG operated in partnership with a Korean financier and
market dealer. From Korea he provided trucks, forklifts, and other heavy metal
cutting equipment. In return DSMG sent scrap metal containers in his name to
markets he chose.
Then the scrap buyers paid him the money and he deducted
what DSMG owed him in equipment and plants with a little profit and sent what
was left back to Bougainville.
DSMG with its two trucks, one a 25 ton truck and another was
a 15 ton, was required to produce 15 tons for the 25 ton truck and 12 tons for
the 15 ton truck. The operations had packers at Kieta port and harvesters in
Panguna. Most employees were young and from a single clan extended family with
only a handful of us from other clans.
Each shipment of scrap from the Kieta port in all cases must
meet the required quota of scrap in tonnage. If the Korean boss wanted 150 tons
of scrap metal then DSMG had to produce that or above. And working to these
directives from Korea DSMG raked up every scrap in its own traditional land
areas and began buying from others.
We group our boys to two groups. Some only did the cutting
of buildings frames and plants; others waited for sellers who had stocked up
their scrap and came to us to buy, and some had laid claim on plants or
buildings and asked us to cut them down and buy them. We did just that all that
for 6 days and rested only on Sundays.
In most cases we did not pay them on spot but I recorded the
mass of scrap to each respective person’s name and truck it away to Kieta. In
Kieta our packing boys packed the scrap in containers. We were required to pack
its container with 25.5 tons of scrap metal.
It was only when this containers had left PNG then we money
came into Bougainville from Korea and we paid our employees and the scrap
owners.
And the most painful characteristic of all Panguna scrap
metal tycoons was that it was a liars and drunkards’ business.
With cash or without cash, all weekends were wild boozing
and partying. This phenomenon raised the number of retail outlets serving goods
and liquor up. Nearly all residents of Panguna were a scrap metalist. Small
retail businesses staggered as credit increased when workers used scrap as
security to get goods.
And for DSMG we promised two Panguna District primary
schools staff houses but till we ceased operations in 2011 because all stock of
scrap has zeroed. Dapera Primary School had not seen a DSMG funded house and
Darenai Primary School (Location 2) had not seen a DSMG house that we promised.
Promises we did to people since we, the top bosses in DSMG,
were earning at the range of K600-K1000 per shipment were not realized. And
today with scrap metal gone our level of financial happiness had shrink far too
low than those that only lived on their gardens and we often boozed and called
them penniless.
