Special Agriculture and Business Lease; SABL; Department of Lands; Commission of Inquiry. land grab

Our Furniture's Dirty Secret: Illegal Land Grabs and Logging Are Robbing Papua New Guineans

By Nina Wegner in The Huffington Post

Sad but true: the mahogany desk in your study or the merbau flooring in your living room probably came from illegal timber logged on tropical lands. It's a dirty trade that's been happening for decades, but a new report finds that Papua New Guinea, one of the main exporters of illegal timber in the world, is now leasing out its ancestral lands to foreign loggers and investors in one of the fastest and largest land grabs in recent history.

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SABL Case Study 11: The Kassman family and their fraudulent LNG land deals

From PNGexposed blog

SABL Commission of Inquiry Report 1: Pages 143 – 166

Gerrard Kassman and his sons Charles and John are the beneficiaries of two illegal and fraudulent SABL land deals close to Port Moresby that seek to cash in on the Exxon-Mobil LNG project.

”There was misrepresentation and fraud involved in the whole process” [p164]

The forging of landowner signatures “borders on fraud and is a criminal act” [p151]

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SABL Case Study No.10: Neville Harsley and the Trans Papuan Highway fraud

SABL Commission of Inquiry Report 2: Pages 390 – 530

There were “serious defects in the process that we observe are fraudulent and corruptible” [p505]

On the increase in the forest clearance corridor from 40m to 10,000m: ”The C.O.I finds this to be erroneous, misleading and mischievous.. [it also] contradicts the statutory requirements” [p397]

It was “illegal or fraudulent” [p405]

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SABL Case Study No.9: Continental Venture and the Middle Ramu

From PNGexposed Blog

SABL Commission of Inquiry Report 2: Pages 867-899

Continental Ventures Limited “failed completely to ensure transparency and good governance in its dealings with the landowners of the SABL project area.” [p875].

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WNB villagers to take developer to court over SABL

From EMTV news

Failure to produce and implement a full Commission of Inquiry recommendation over the controversial Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABL’s) is causing distress for innocent landowning communities in rural areas.

The people of West Pomio in the East New Britain Province, are one among those facing the plight of losing their land and suffering ill treatment to their forests by foreign developers under SABL agreements.

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What happens next in PNG’s land grab saga?

By Colin Filer* on DevPolicy Blog

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SABL Case Study No.8: Acting Lands Secretary Romilly Kila-Pat

From PNGexposed blog

Mr Kila-Pat “unlawfully caused a SABL to be created, which he further unlawfully granted to an entity not even agreed upon by the landowners” [p 59]

“…Romily Kila-Pat deliberately decided to ignore and by-pass the existing protocols and practices… when [he] decided to grant three separate SABLs … over Portions 2456C, 2466C and 2485C”. [p153]

there was “misrepresentation and fraud involved in the whole process”… “His conduct was ‘highly suspicious”  [p164]

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