By Lester Seri
Minister Lucas Dekena’s denial that “there is no scam, con or land grabbing in PNG” is the worst denial of the century made by any Minister in PNG. To make statements of denial while there are scores of documented evidence on land fraud starring at him is beyond comprehension.
I understand that the Minister responsible for Lands is only recently appointed but I caution him to make better judegment on such a sensitive issue dear to the hearts of many Papua New Guineans before making such questionable political statements that further put into question the already damaged reputation of the Ministry and the Department of Lands.
There have been many cases of con and scam land dealings published by journalists already that put beyond any questions about fraud in the Lands Department.
The land court cases of Collingwood Bay, Musa – Pongani in Oro Province, Mekeo in the Central Province and Kamulo Doso and Wawoi Guavi in Western Province, that have been won by landowners are testaments to Sir Julius claims that cannot be refuted.
The landowners took the State to court over illegal alienation and use of their customary land and won. There is no political point scoring in any way that the issues Sir Julius is raising about. Absolutely nothing hence, Dekena is not only wrong but unnecessarily downplaying the seriousness of the problem!
We cannot afford to have a Government Minister responsible misleading the public on such a serious problem reported many times over in the recent past. I personally have reviewed the Musa – Pongani and Collingwood Bay Land matters before the landowners went to court and my findings confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt of many breaches of the Land, DAL and Forestry Acts.
Furthermore, to alienate five million hectares of land among which many are customary land in such a short time period (less than six years) is solid evidence that Minister responsible and his officers cannot deny. Alienation of customary land can take up to five or more years to complete. The Minister cannot simply downplay or brush aside the seriousness of the issues being raised by various commentators including Sir Julius Chan on land fraud in PNG. He would be making a terrible mistake.
If he is not careful, his current stance of being indifferent could be viewed as careless and condoning the current state of play by the Lands Department officials with regards to the problem at hand affecting innocent customary landowners.
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The people’s leaders have agreed to millions of hectares
The people’s leaders have agreed to millions of hectares effectively leased forever to expatriates. These and future leaders cannot be relied upon to return any developed land to its customary owners. This is because the customary owners will never have the ability to buyback the developed land of this magnitude. Where the entire operation is a scam for clear felling the villagers will recover their degraded and exploited land with no payment.
These millions of hectares of our small amount of good agricultural land are being handed over to exploiters. They will not be interested in
the major part of PNG that is mountains, swamps and otherwise unproductive.
The claim by our leaders that it is only a small percent of PNG can be easily exposed by our academics. They can give these leased areas as a percent of the actual area that is recognised as having the potential for farming, grazing and renewable forestry. These percentages can be shown as a percentage of the district involved. i.e. New Hanover 90% of the useful land.
Many of our most senior leaders have, in public and in the media, strongly promoted landowners entering into these types of leases with overseas developers. The message is that our own people are quite useless when it comes to developing their own land and should hand it over to someone who can. Effectively these leaders, especially the long term leaders, are admitting that they have failed since Independence to develop a viable farming community for PNG. Since Independence we have produced executives, Pilots, various engineers etc. who are able to compete successfully against the world; we even have missionaries around the world. There is hardly a farmer in PNG who can be said to be able to measure up against a modern farmer in the first, second or third world countries.
At a time when millions of hectares have been effectively permanently alienated to non citizens there is a question to be asked. None of our commentators have asked why this same government has not located a relatively small corner of Madang for the Manam people, a smaller part of Sepik for the refugees of Bulolo and a bit for the sinking atolls etc.? Apparently some village leaders can be convinced that their land will not be needed in the foreseeable future and beyond. Why not make resettlement blocks available for our yearning people from over-populated areas. The local leaders will of course be horrified at the thought of Sepiks, Chimbus, Southern Highlanders and others settling in their area. Have they put a thought as to which Provinces are able to supply the labour for the foreign occupiers of these leases? They will have nothing to say in this matter, the government will be on the side the overseas developer. These labourers will not return home. There will inevitably be intermarriage and settlement of retirees. There are many more Bulolos in our future. In the long view this mixing will be good for PNG, in the short term it will be hard for the people involved. Ask the displaced Sepiks in Bulolo.
Tony Flynn
Wau