Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

The company invited interested people and groups to apply for spin-offs. It was donemainly by the Commerce office of the provincial government. They charged a K50 deposit.Most people now realized that it will not eventuate so they reimbursed their money from theCommerce office.SST dose not have a Training and Localization Program. The whole thing of the TrainingLocalisation Program by the PNG Training Council is just a myth. Why do I say that? Apartfrom many areas they fail to address is that so-called expatriates come into PNG for 2-3years contract and after their contract expired they continue to work for another 10-20years. That’s cheating the system and the people, and not creating opportunities andallowing our local people to grow and mature in senior management positions in PNG.Another competitor hoping to build a cannery here is Thailand company called the OffShore Masters. It was said to start its operation, especially building its factory startingFebruary this year but there must be something wrong in the long delay of it. One of thereason given for the delay was for the tsunami that hit Asia last Christmas.One of the Production Managers who I called an off-cut is a Filippino whom RD Tuna inMadang threw him out and SST picked him up. He is very abusive and used unacceptableswear words to abuse the women. I have lots of complains from people working under him,especially the women on the production line. We PNG have cultural taboos againstswearing women or in front of women but his behavior is very offensive and insulting.Swearing by the Asians is common and its kind of an organizational culture or say andorganizational language used by the senior managers against the line or lower subordinates.They are very abusive and irritating to the local ears. This SST factory is known forswearing women and even touching them on wrong part of their body such as breasts,buttocks and their private parts. I have complaints even from one of the senior staff that shewas touched by the Pilippino on her front part. I raised that up in the senior staff meetingseveral times but never had any appropriate action from the senior management. Anyunsolicited touch should be regarded as sexual harassment and I don’t see any seriouscommitment to such laws. Maybe owing to the level of education and the level ofawareness the employees have about their rights on the job.I personally do not agree with the management style of SST – treating people (employee)like in the days of the colonial masters. Some of these foreigners seem to think alone thesame line that Papua New Guineas are still the primates they we back in the 50s and 60s butin this day and age you cannot treat people like that. People have rights and any companyoperation in the country should acknowledge and appreciate such and uphold it.I don’t even like the way the foreigner especially the Asian coming into the country toexploit our resource and even claim simple jobs locals can do here. In the jobs that has noPNG national who knows the technical know-how, why would you want to hire an Asiawho does not know his job. That is something wrong within the system so if we are to cleanour country we have to clean such areas and be transparent as possible. The company suchas SST is not looking hard enough to put the right people from the pool of qualifiednationals to do some job some foreigners are doing. That is nothing hard in the factory-PNG locals can simply run the job but it the investor or the owner of the operation thatwants people of its own choice. Like I said though nationals are high qualified but still getlower pay compared to some of this foreigners.139