By Julia Daia Bore

Irregularities are rife at the second stages of the Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABL) where third parties are involved, a commissioner involved in the SABL investigations says.

Speaking on Monday in a special hearing in Port Moresby of the SABL inquiry, Commissioner Alois Jerewai said based on his observations, the irregularities occurred when third parties were involved.

“Third parties here are the developers,” he said.

 “Allegations of almost 5.2 million hectares of customary land that is owned by Papua New Guineans is not a matter to be taken lightly and as already seen in the preliminary stages and even now – the individual inquiry into individual SABL is beginning to reveal very, very serious flaws".

“At the commencement our focus was mainly on whether irregularities occurred in the lease-lease back arrangement to the state and in reversing back to the landowners choice of entities that will hold titles to the leases." 

“But what had been revealed is that the true loss of or a alienation of customary land occurred on the second stage, where after the state lease on a lease-lease back to landowners, was the sublease to the third persons, that is where the loss actually took place".

Jerewai said although he had not made any specific findings yet, his observations at this stage with the evidence at hand in relation to the SABL being investigated by his team in East New Britain, showed flaws.

“It just magnifies the gravity of the situation we have at hand. And what may have been on the face of it in the preliminaries did not show us truly where alienation may have taken place. But my observation is that it was on the second phase (when third parties came on the scene).”

He said “the four SABLs in the Pomio and the Palmalmal districts of East New Britain have been the centre of serious controversy.

“Such that they had been projected to the world stage in such a way that the inquiry must establish with great amount of certainty based on evidence as of any irregularities which may have occurred in relation to those SABLs,” Jerewai said.