By John Pangkatana
Three separate landowner company executives have made questionable sub-lease arrangements with international forestry developers that have the same company secretary in the Gulf Province, reports the Post Courier.
Their respective sub-leases are an exact replica of each other, the Commission of Inquiry in SABLs in Gulf Province established in Port Moresby yesterday.
The developers are also believed to be subsidiaries of a prominent Malaysian logging company in Papua New Guinea.
This was revealed during the wrap-up of the Commission of Inquires (CoI) into seven Special Agriculture Business Leases (SABLs) from the Gulf Province in Port Moresby on Monday.
It also appears that the landowners for those three SABLs did not know the full extent of the lease lease-back Government project. The CoI revealed that a group of landowners did not know what they signed themselves up for. They did not know they were handing their traditional lands and forests to the developer for 99 years.
The CoI heard that provisions provided for in the leases are also questionable.
The three landowner companies are Aiowo Oil Palm Limited, East Yaii Oil Palm Limited and Wowobo Oil Palm Limited.
The CoI revealed that they all entered sub-lease arrangements with Reko PNG Limited (Portion 4C), River Estates Plantation (Portion 5C) and Riva Plantation Limited (Portion 6C).
The company secretary’s name that is reflected in all the three companies is Sukh Deve Singh Riar, also known as David Singh.
When Mr Riar was questioned by Commissioner Alois Jerewai on the shareholding of the companies, he claimed that the landowners had 10 per cent of shares in the respective companies. However, when questioned on the shares certificates to qualify his answer, he said he did not have the certificates but only resolutions from meetings to qualify his statements.
Mr Jerewai then directed Mr Riar to have the certificates of shares presented to his assisting council Simon Ketan at the close of business on January 10 to qualify his statement.
This also includes copies of all resolutions issued of all shares from each of the developing companies
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By redaing some comments made by others, I believe people do not
By redaing some comments made by others, I believe people do not really understand what the underlaying problems are here in PNG regarding the issuance of SABL.In PNG customary land is owned by clans and not tribes and the clans are headed by leaders who inconsultantion with hes clan members decide what is to be done with thier land. In a tribe there may be say, 50 to 100 clans and they all speak the same language. I does not mean that one Association or company can go ahead and apply for the SABL through the lands Department. Unless all clan leaders sign the Incorporated Land Group (ILG) forms. What has been happening in the issuance of the SABL is incorrect, I say this because only one or few families form Associations and apply for the SABL, especially those living in the cities and towns without the approval of the Clan chairmen who are living back at rural village settings,so I support the NGO in this matter. There is now where in PNG one clan and or family has more than 500,000 hactres of customary land. The issue here is people who are aplying for the SABL are not consulting the land owner ILG’s, which is an attempt to steal the land and engage foreign companies mostly to do logging and make quick bucks in the name of agriculture and at the expense of mostly illiterate land owners. This was the case for Purari Developement Association headed by Roy Evara and the Iare Tribe families of Baimuru Gulf Province, of the recent issuance of the Baimuru -Karimui Formil 8 SABL. It is currently a court matter now. So the PNG Government concept is right but few greedy self centered individuals are miss using it for thier own gains.