Landowners

The villagers claimed that the work site, which is on a piece of disputed land, was still in court and developers should not be there carrying out any activities until the land issue is cleared.

Joseph Baeau, Chairman of the Papa Delegation Committee dealing with controversial land issues, and his committee led a group of people to the work site to demand a stop work from contractor Curtain Brothers.

The landowners are claiming that breaches in the MOA have caused negative impacts on the social, environmental and economic lives of the Porgera landowners. 

Chairman of the Resource Owners Federation of PNG, Jonathan Paraia, said the 1988 proposals sought State approval and issuance of a Special Mining Lease (SML) for the mine to construct mining infrastructure that was capable of processing eight thousand tons of crushed ore through its mill over a mine life of twenty years.

Mining Minister, Johnston Tuke, and acting Managing Director of the Mineral Resources Authority (MRA), Nathan Mosusu, said this during royalty payment for the project on Friday, 6^th July.

The royalties totaling K25, 537, 210.13 were paid on behalf of the National Government by Tuke, the landowners and the Madang Provincial Government.

Of the total amount, K17,620,674.99 was paid to landowners and K7,916,535.14 to the Madang Provincial Government.

It was during the payment that Minister Tuke called on them to use their money wisely.

In a joint conference this afternoon, Chairman of Angore Special Authority, Hari John Akipe, alongside other leaders of the Angore Well head and Hakupara clan urged the developer and the government to ignore these demands.

The landowners said the issues raised in their petition on May 22, 2018 were not genuine and were not from genuine landowners and as such was not supported by the principal Wellhead clans who are custodians and security of the three Wellheads at Angore PDL8.

In a media conference today in Port Moresby the landowners have given seven days to the Government and the PNG LNG project developer to respond to their petition.

They have threatened that if decisions from the Government are not favorable, they will be shutting down the project.

They raised this issue after the Government released K35 million to the Hides landowners and not them.

Angore landowners spokes person, Eric Mandoro said the Government had been very slow in processing the clan vetting which resulted in them not getting any royalty benefits.

The four major landowner chairmen met with the Minister for Mining, Johnson Tuke, recently to air their grievances.

In a meeting recently held in Port Moresby, the landowners from the Kurumbukari, Basamuk, Basamuk Coastal Pipeline and Maijuri inland pipeline urged Minister Tuke to give them feedback on their overdue royalty payments since the beginning of the project in 2013.

Toby Bare, chairman of Kurumbukari Landowners Association, said the landowners have been waiting patiently for the past years for the Government to hear their plight but nothing has been forthcoming.

They have warned that serious actions will be taken to make their call heard.

The landowners said they have been quiet for too long and it was time they came out to speak on the issue.

Representatives from the region say following the signing of the Umbrella Benefit Sharing Agreement (UBSA) and Landowner Benefit Sharing Agreement in 2009 for the PNG LNG Project, they were promised K19 million.

However they said they only received a fraction of that.

Illegal land grabbing is a massive problem in PNG and has a big impact on rural subsistence farmers.

Once permission over the customary-owned land is granted to a company through a lease title, communities are displaced and to some point, disrespected.

Furthermore, with an absence of a Human Rights Commission, landowners lack support to present their cases.

As a consequence, the forest dependent subsistence farmers, mothers and children are greatly affected as their movement is restricted. They lose access to gardening grounds, fishing, hunting and sacred sites.

The landowners are demanding the National Government to pay K15 million in outstanding land compensation or they will shut the airport permanently.

Spokesperson Barthimias Kaipa said for so long, their land compensation requests have been falling on deaf ears since 2006, when they lodged their claim.

He said their claims had been processed by government agencies and were paid to illegitimate landowners.

They have presented their petition to Girua Airport manager Eki Wally on behalf of Minister for Civil Aviation Alfred Manasseh last Friday.

Some of these landowners were in Port Moresby recently and aired their grievances, which they highlighted were long overdue.

Lawrence Komboguru, a spokesperson for the group, said more than 20 years has passed without the much-needed traces of development and infrastructure or services in one of the oldest logging areas in East Sepik Province.

The Hawain LFA landowners have raised their concerns many times, even at the provincial level, but to no avail.