Photo credit: Papua New Guinea Forest Authority
The Papua New Guinea Forest Authority (PNGFA) has increased their budget for the remainder the year to remove the economic barriers that have been preventing them from generating revenue. PNGFA Managing Director John Mosoro said the budget that is proposed is well over what they have received before.
"It is quite an ambitious budget," Mosoro said. One of their main focuses after the budget is approved would be to immediately reform the forest authority into a new entity which would better promote the economic and the social sector.
"We will be looking at much better approaches in generating revenue for PNGFA as well as paying our dividends to the state while also looking at the welfare of all our staff throughout the country, especially those in the provinces where we need to consider and look after in terms of housing, land and proper monitoring and surveillance in their work," Mr Mosoro said.
"PNGFA also wants to promote good governance in the forest board".
"The board will be similar to other state owned enterprises in terms of remuneration and other things as well," he added.
"Those are some of the things that PNGFA will start to focus and work on immediately once we get our budget through to the government,"
The PNG Forest Authority has one over-riding aim: to promote the management of Environment and Forest resources as a renewable asset for the benefit of present and future generations, in other words, to ensure that the forestry industry in Papua New Guinea is a sustainable one.
The main aim of government policy in recent years has been to phase out log exports in favour of processed timber products to add value and provide employment, but at present 90% of the timber exports in this K600 million industry is still in the form of crude logs.
Meanwhile, Minister for Forestry Hon Solio Waipo raised a concern that the forest ministry had been given little support by the Government and it was not enough for the Ministry to utilise all their plans especially in reaching the remote parts of the country.
"That is what I will take up to the National level to see through the National Executive Council that we can secure enough funding for our budget to see our plans delivered to our people in the remote parts of the country," said Minister Waipo.
