PNG’s health boost
AUSTRALIA’S Oil Search is expanding its role in Papua New Guinea from its vast resources activities to running the country’s HIV and AIDS programs.
The Bill Gates- founded health financing firm the Global Fund was funding the programs by making direct donations to the PNG Government, but stopped the payments after an investigation uncovered the misuse of nearly $ US1.4 million ($ A1.5 million).
The Fund has instead put Oil Search in charge of how the money is spent on the programs, in partnership with the government.
It is believed to be one of only two instances in the world – the other is Shell in the Philippines – in which a company rather than a government has been trusted with administering the Fund’s payments.
Oil Search, which is the biggest investor in PNG, is managing grants worth $ 80 million through its health foundation to tackle HIV and AIDS along with malaria and maternal and child health programs.
Leading Australian HIV/ AIDS researcher Professor Sharon Lewin has praised the program ahead of the AIDS 2014 major global conference in Melbourne this month.
HIV and AIDS cases in PNG are the worst in the Asia- Pacific region and at epidemic levels, but not as bad as in subSaharan Africa.
Oil Search chief executive Peter Botten, who will address the conference, believes the private sector has a moral obligation to help PNG.
“There is a lack of clearly some basic services that are taken for granted in the developed world,” he said from Port Moresby yesterday.
“It is difficult if you live out at a village with no access to power, a very poor road system that limits your economic development and you can’t get goods to market, can’t get kids easily to school and the local health clinic is not working too well.”
Rather than taking over funds that originally went to the Government, he prefers to say Oil Search is in a partnership with the health department, providing drugs, education and other treatment.
The arrangement follows Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop calling for more private sector aid in PNG, after falls in the country’s United Nations health and development rankings.
Australia’s closest neighbour’s wealth and development is ranked poorly globally.
The PNG LNG project to commercialise the country’s gas resources that Oil Search is a partner in is supposed to more than double the size of the economy, boosting revenues and living standards.