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MADANG - A newly opened Chinese-run nickel mine in Papua New Guinea has been accused of ill-treating local workers and is being threatened with closure.
The Ramu nickel mine in Madang province could contaminate rivers and devastate fish stocks, scientists have warned.
The A$1 billion ($1.12 billion) mine is being developed by the Chinese Government-owned Metallurgical Group Corporation. It will exploit one of the world's largest undeveloped nickel-cobalt deposits.
But poor working conditions and a perception that local workers are being treated with contempt threaten to turn the project into a public relations nightmare. Toilet facilities are so poor that PNG workers are using the nearby forest rather than suffer the indignity of squatting on logs over open latrines, Government officials claimed last week.
After paying the site a surprise visit, PNG's Labour and Industrial Relations Secretary, David Tibu, said local workers were being paid for overtime with tinned fish rather than money and that the canteen provided for employees was "not fit for pigs or dogs".
Chinese employees live in separate accommodation from their PNG counterparts, many of whom were sleeping in makeshift tents which became waterlogged during heavy rain. Local workers were being paid just A$4 a day, leading to accusations of slave labour.
PNG's Labour Department has demanded that Metallurgical Group Corporation and its subsidiary, ENFI, raise wages and provide a proper canteen, better toilets and insurance for employees.
An ENFI manager said the company would act swiftly to allay the Government's concerns. "We cannot afford to make this project a failure for China or PNG," Hu Zhiliang told the Post-Courier.
Scientists and locals fear that a plan to dispose of the mine tailings into the sea, via a pipeline, could devastate marine life and endanger a lucrative tuna fishery. The tailings will be transported 135km to the coast and dumped at a depth of 150m in Astrolabe Bay. But an independent report last week suggested that deep water currents could bring contamination to the surface, killing fish. "Worst of all, the tailings would kill off benthic organisms, a major part of the ocean food chain," environmental consultant Clement Kunandi Victor wrote in the report.
