The accessibility and availability of land is a major problem confronting housing or residential properties in PNG.
The Papua New Guinea National Research Institute reports that the land owned by the State is limited and almost exhausted.
There’s only three percent land that belongs to the government and 97 percent belongs to customary landowners.
This implies that there is a need to free up more customary owned land for residential property sector.
PNGNRI researcher for the property development research program, Professor Eugene Ezebilo, said it’s difficult to access customary land because private investors are skeptical in investing on customary land.
Professor Ezebilo explained that private investors mainly invest on state owned land and because it’s nearly exhausted, this contributes to the high housing price and rentals.
NRI has pushed so that it will be easier to access customary land and this has resulted in the establishment of the Customary Land Development Office.
Professor Ezebilo said: “This is not yet really functional but it’s still in the pipeline so we want the government to put in an effort so this office could be functional.
“Although prior to this, there used to be a customary land office under the Department of Lands and Physical Planning but the problem is that it’s not very efficient and affective.
“Establishing this new Customary Land Development Office makes it more efficient and effective so that it will be easier to register customary land.”