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

4. The awareness programFrances Sumanup was the driving force behind the awareness programme throughout residentialcommunities in Wewak, where he introduced the company and its workforce needs, theadvantages it would afford town residents, and the possible spin-offs and ‘multiplier’ effects tocome from it. From our understanding none of this awareness involved written materials, whichmeant that promises expressed or implied by Mr. Sumanup can never be confirmed. Needless tosay, villagers across Wewak heard only favorable descriptions of the factory to come, and manyof them also came away believing private citizens might eventually purchase shares in SST.Viak people report: There is a spin off promise awareness said but were its now they’ve beenbullshitting us from the beginning we the Viak landowners did not involve in the discissionmaking plus the ground breaking ceremony.Peter Kumun I recall there was a public awareness campaign aired on the radio east Sepiktelling people that every thing will be fine.Did the Provincial Government or the management of the south sea tuna come down and talk tothe people how the factory is going to dump the waste?Alex We the people of this village here know nothing ,no one came to our village and discussedany thing about the cannery plus they knew we are the traditionally landowners by rights weowns the land were the cannery is builds. Like we share the boundaries with the otherlandowners. The awareness ,were discuss with the settlements ,convincing them about thegoods that the cannery is going to bring to them plus they must fully support the government tobring more projects to benefit every one also our islanders they are subject to the problems thatwe are facing today. For example the government is getting 10 percent from the cannery for thetax and that’s a facts from some reliable sources.. So we’ve been sideline like we are nobody.These people are crazy by not consulting us the land owners.17 .6.03 letter from John Niabau of the East Sepik Islands Association National ResourceOwners Committee to Francis Sumanup asking that they halt awareness programs until theyrespond to a letter of 9.4.03 which asked to see the original project proposal, then another lettersent 28.8.03 to Bruce Samban regarding lack of response.The PM’s Office’s Project Officer, Petrus Sagom , could recalled that, a team as assigned bythe company SST went around making awareness on the environmental impact of the loinery ifestablished. One of the things promised was that the loinery will not produce the foul smell. The66