By Jacob Pok

THE Commission of Inquiry into the Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) is investigating a foreign-owned company over the acquisition of more than two million hectares of land in Western.

The Independent Timber and Stevedoring Company, a subsidiary of a US-based company, was engaged by the government to construct a 600km Trans-Papua Highway from Kiunga into Central’s Hiritano  and through three other provinces.

However, the Commission received a report that the company had allegedly acquired three portion of land with a total area of 2,043,197ha through SABL sub-lease from three landowner companies in the area with the intention to do other business activities.

The inquiry also found that the company requested an additional 5m of land from the 40m corridor agreed to for road construction.

When questioned by the commission yesterday, the company’s chief executive officer Neville Harsley said they did it for proposed agricultural purposes. Presiding Commissioner Nicholas Mirou asked Harsley what type of agricultural development the company intended to carry out. Harsley said the company wanted to plant vegetables such as cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes and Asian trees.

The Commission found that the company had no agricultural background. And the intention to plant vegetables and tress were not satisfactory as cash crops to sustain the lives of the Kiungia people. Mirou told Harsley that such large hectares of land required farming of cash crops such as oil palm, rubber and cocoa on a large scale.

Counsel assisting the commission Jim Bokomi told Harsley that the company’s main intention was logging under the pretext of road construction. But Harsley denied the intention of logging and said the company was only securing the land to provide basic services to the people such as schools, roads, health facilities and employment opportunities for the local people.

Evidences collected by the Commission in an earlier inquiry held in Kiunga indicated that customary landowners could have given their consent not for SABLs but for the acquisition of their customary land for the road construction. The acting adviser for the division of lands in Western said he was not consulted in regards to the SABLs. 

He told the inquiry that he did not peruse the relevant land investigations reports. He only relied on what the company provided them.

He also told the enquiry that although he signed the Land Investigations Reports, he did not physically inspect the customary land boundaries.

Comissioner Mirou found that the relevant office in the province as well as the district administration had failed to practise due diligence in their duties.