By Joey Tau, Freelance Journalist Pacific Media

The Special Agriculture and Business Lease (SABL) concept has been labelled as a miserable failure to Papua New Guinea and its local landowners.

This was according to Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill when recently tabling final reports from the Commission of Inquiry into the SABL.

The Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the SABL was established during the Somare-Abal Government when then Acting Prime Minister, Sam Abal, called for an inquiry back in 2011.

The SABL concept was intended to allow the conversion of traditional land into leasehold land for agricultural use for the benefit of landowners in PNG.

The Commission consisted of John Numapo as chairman, Nicholas Mirou and Alois Jerewai as commissioners, while Davis Stevens, Dr Garry Sali, Paul Tusais, Paul Paraka, Mathew Yuangu and Mayabo Peipul were appointed technical and advisory support personnel.

But since the inquiry was established, the COI had prolonged and when Peter O’Neill took office as Prime Minister he saw to it that the commission produced a final report to parliament.

However, there was much delay and O’Neill said “it was very disappointing” that the commissioners had differences and didn’t work together as a team, and as a result the Chief Commissioner, John Numapo and Commissioner, Nicholas Mirou, were the only two out of the three appointed to hand in their final reports to parliament.

On the other hand, Alois Jerewai (the commissioner who failed to hand in his report to parliament) gave his reasons for failing to meet the deadline set by the Prime Minister, adding that theCOI was under-funded and it is reflected in the serious qualification to the COI report once allowed to be published.

“The Commission of Inquiry into the SABL received only K7 million out of the K15 million that the Prime Minister said it spent on this inquiry...I want to know where the other balance of K8 million was spent. It certainly was not spent on this COI,” said Jerewai.

Nevertheless, civil numerous civil societies have praised the for speeding up the COI, highlighting that the two reports tabled in parliament point out serious findings and the O’Neill Government must act swiftly address the recommendations set in the reports.

Prime Minister O’Neill said the COI was tasked to examine 75 SABLs, but the final reports only examined 42.  

The respective inquiry reports compiled by Chief Commissioner, John Numapo, and Commissioner, Nicholas Mirou, found that there was widespread abuse, fraud, lack of coordination between government agencies, failure and incompetence of government officials to ensure compliance, accountability and transparency within the SABL process.

The reports highlighted that throughout the course of the inquiry serious allegations were levelled against officials and senior government bureaucrats involved in the management of SABL, with bribes and inducements being offered by project developers and representatives of landowner companies to procure SABL titles.

The inquiry also received evidence of undue political pressures being put on government officials by senior Ministers and politicians to fast-track SABL applications and issue titles. Incidences of political interference were numerous and were reported in respective individual SABL reports.

The reports overall findings pointed out that there was corruption and mismanagement, and lack of coordination by key agencies including departments of Lands and Physical Planning, Environment and Conservation, Agriculture and Livestock, Provincial Affairs and Local Level Government, Investment Promotion Authority, PNG Forest Authority, and the Forest Clearance Authority.

The reports stated that the entire land management system in PNG is in a mess and recommended that the SABL process should be done away with or a workable policy be formulated on SABL that benefits local landowners.

According to the reports, the 4 SABLs that were not found to be fishy or did not portray any illegal accounts included:

• KEMEND KELBA KEI INVESTMENT LTD, Portion 155C, Milinch Baiyer, FourMil Ramu, WHP
• POROM COFFEE LTD, Portion 302C, Milinch Baiyer, FourMill, Ramu, WHP
• HEWAU INVESTMENT LTD, Portion 351C, Milinch Baiyer, FourMill Wabag, SHP
• MAPSERA DVELOPMENT CORPORATION LTD, Portion 54C, Masalagar, Kubalia, Chambri and Yambo, ESP

Local NGOs ACT NOW! and Bismark Ramu Group (BRG) are now calling on the Prime Minister to immediately cancel all leases and stop further operation of projects under SABL.

BRG’s Campaign Manager, Rosa Koian said 38 of the 42 leases mentioned in the report were fraudulently obtained by foreign companies “and they must be cancelled and returned back to the rightful landowners.”

Koian said local landowners have been lied to and their resources stolen for profit by foreign logging companies.

“Local landowners have waited for far too long and it is almost over 10 years...their land and resources must be returned to them,” said Koian.

“The longer we wait people will continue to suffer. So I’m calling on the Prime Minister to use his discretion and set directives to put a stop to all forest clearance agreements, and prosecute those implicated in the report,” said ACT NOW Program Manager, Effrey Dademo.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister O’Neill told parliament that his Government will appoint a special taskforce to take on the recommendations of COI.