There are reports from Papua New Guinea's autonomous region of Bougainville that landowners in the Central district are stealing scrap metal owned by the Bougainville Copper mine.
A Post Courier journalist, Gorethy Kenneth, says she has spoken with landowners in Central Bougainville who say locals are helping themselves to premium steel and machinery from Panguna mine and selling it at a low cost overseas.
She says they're justifying it because they own the land on which the metal is being kept.
"It's being stolen because those things remain the property of BCL. But the way the landowners and some people in Central Bougainville, or the Panguna landowners are seeing it is many lives have been lost so they're just helping themselves to those things, because there are machines and they're looking for some economic means for themselves."
Gorethy Kenneth says the Deputy Prime Minister will be travelling to the Panguna mine to look into the situation as the national government is concerned about the issue.
