Source: Post Courier

By HAIVETA KIVIA


THERE are fake land titles doing the rounds in Lae City, catching the authorities off guard and throwing people into confusion.

Morobe Provincial Lands Program advisor Jonah Suwi made this statement in the light of new developments taking place on land in and around the Raun Wara recreational area in Lae, off the Markham, Huon and Milford Haven roads. Mr Suwi said what was happening at Raun Wara was before his time and he had asked the Lae City Council Physical Planning section to issue a stopwork notice to a prominant developer and any other developer in that area until all legal matters and appeals to the National Land Board were heard and settled. 

He told the Post-Courier that his officers had come across two to three different title holders of land leases in Lae and on all occasions, one or two of the titles were fake, issued by corrupt officials out to make quick bucks, urged by corrupt individuals and companies. He said it was becoming frequent and some had illegally occupied land but he did not mention where and whom.


“We will surely find out if you have the genuine title because we will check out the folios and volumes to determine whether it came from the Titles Office in Port Moresby,” he warned.


He said they would from now on cross-check with the Titles office in Port Moresby. 
He said an example was a land at Cassowary Road at Cormorant Street that was nearly stolen from the true lease holder but quick intervention by his officers and the true title holder prevented the fraud.  Mr Suwi said he supported the call made by Lae City manager Roy Kamen for a closer and wider consultation when re-zoning land and granting of leases so that the interests of the city residents and the council was also protected.  Mr Kamen had asked for closer consultation with city council by all authorities and Government divisions involved with land deals in Lae so that no one authority was the dark regarding developments in the city.

Former City manager Jacob Sawanga said some Morobe Provincial Land Board members frequented Port Moresby as if they were taking a bus-ride to Eriku and the board must be terminated if corruption was to be weeded out of the Provincial Lands office and board level. 

Post-Courier was reliably told that some ordinary board members had been frequenting Port Moresby lately when they had no Government businesses to do there.
Morobe Governor Kelly Naru had issued notices to Provincial Land Board and Land Transport Board not to carry out further businesses until he was satisfied that what they were doing were in the best interest of the province. 

Governor Naru was dissatisfied with the levels of allegations of corruption and the poor performances of both boards and supposedly suspended them but some of these board members were still carrying out businesses in the name of these boards.