LOs determination stopped by injunction

Petroleum Minister, Kerenga Kua has assured landowners within the footprint of the Papua LNG Project that the landowner’s identification has already been done but has been stopped from being given to his office for vetting.

Minister Kua said a National Court injunction taken out by the Purari Development Association is preventing Papua LNG Project lead developer Total, from presenting him the Social Mapping and Landowner Identification (SMLI) Report.

Kua said with the signinig of the Fiscal Stability Agreement, they can now focus on addressing the court injunction, and begin working with landowners from both Gulf Province, which hosts Papua LNG, and Central Province.

“I want to assure everybody in those two provinces that this process is at an advanced stage. Landowner Identification I think has been substantially completed. However the project developer could not bring it to my level or my department, for the final vetting of that study, and from there for me to sign off on the determinations,” said Minister Kua.

“I think, largely because there’s and injunction there sitting somewhere, stopping the company, Total, from presenting their study to me. So that’s a National Court injunction that we will have to deal with.

“So our energy and attention was focused on getting past this stage (signing). Now that we have achieved this we will put our focus back to the National Court proceeding. Hopefully, we can work towards having the injunction removed so that we can invite the landowners to work with us so that we settle our issues in an amicable away without going to the courts and delaying everybody and frustrating them. I want to give my assurance to both landowners in Gulf and Central, we will do everything possible to hear them out, and where we can, and we will accommodate them, and make sure the processes are fast tracked.”

Author: 
Cedric Patjole