Minister for Lands, John Rosso has appealed to Members of Parliament and to all cities and towns authorities to identify recreational parks and ovals to ensure that these lands are protected.
He stated this during Questions Without Notice session of Parliament today in response to concerns raised by Allan Bird, Governor for East Sepik Province of the possession of public recreational land in Port Moresby, that was fenced last week.
“Identify your recreational oval, identify your market, liaise with the Lands Department, so we can vest those public recreational facilities to your respective towns and city management. So people cannot misuse these portions of land and apply and undermine rules and obtain titles to parks that belong to our children to abuse.
“It comes back to our own respective Members of Parliament, please identify your recreational ovals, like we’ve done in Lae,” Minister Rosso stated.
“We have identified all our recreational ovals and we have now go the Lands Department to vest those recreational ovals and drainage reserves.”
He urged the MPs to also vest drainage reserves as well as other landmarks that are needed for town planning back to the city or town authority, or the provincial government.
“Please liaise with us and we can help you to do this so we prevent this from happening. The law is already there, all we have to do is to make sure we enforce it.”