Over K680m land claims with Dept: Minister

Over K680 million of land compensation claims currently sit with the Department of Lands, and none of them will be entertained any time soon.

Minister responsible, Justin Tkatchenko, expressed disgust at the amount of falsified documents that the Lands team was able to dig out.

Minister Tkatchenko said the 373 land compensation files are from the highlands region.

“That’s Simbu Province, Southern Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Hela, Jiwaka, Western Highlands and Enga, that have been claiming for land compensation valued at K688 million. Now this is just absolutely absurd,” he said.

The Minister said people’s greed has led to many falsified documentation and collusion with officers in the Lands, Finance and Treasury Departments over many years and has now come to this.

“Secretary (Oswald) Tolopa and his team found that out of the 373, 119 claims valued at K206 million was state land,” Minister Tkatchenko said.

The Minister said none of these claims have been approved because the claim files are suspicious in the sense that they do not have support documentation from the district or provincial lands office for verification.

Acting Lands Secretary Oswald Tolopa said verification of claims from the Highlands region began 3 months ago, and they will continue into the coastal provinces.

“And that’s only 28 (claims) of them according to the list which was given by the Minister in February this year. We will deliberate on the correspondence coming in and if any payment is to be made, it will not happen here (in Port Moresby) but in the districts and provinces where the land is,” said Tolopa.

Meantime, Tolopa and his team have picked up 8 claims that are fraudulent in nature and Minister Tkatchenko said these will be referred to the Fraud squad who are already set up at the Lands Department.

Author: 
Salome Vincent