LAND BELONGS TO ITS PEOPLE AND NO ONE ELSE

The O’Neil- Dion Government wants to ensure that the people have a stake in any development that will happen on their land.

But remember… your land is wealth and it is where you will fall back too after your retirement.  Please, don’t give away your birthright.

The Physical Planning Department says they are aware that some land board members have been doing illegal deals with developers.

Land is one of our most valuable assets, without it we can’t survive.  Our culture and the very essence of our origins begin with land.

Our ancestors began their collection of wealth by first acquiring land; they fought and spilled blood just to gain territory and dominance.

They married according to land mass… a man was allowed to have wives because he had more land, it was all wealth.

Our history and heritage revolves around yarns of spirits that live in Mountains, Caves and rivers that are so sacred… that only few go and it all remains virgin.

These places and the spirits where once worshipped by our ancestors before Christianity and all other faiths ever reached our shores.

We have pride richly blessed with land mass so big that comes with natural beauty… so rare and resources that only few places on Earth have.

And it will stay that way…

The Government on Land

The National Physical Planning department revealed during the Swearing in of a New Morobe Provincial Physical Planning Board that the government owns 3% of Papua New Guinean landmass.

This simply means that 97% of Papua New Guinea’s land still belongs to people that own them by birth right, this is customary land.

The goal of the Government is to obtain this land from customary landowners by developing policies that will ensure that customary landowners will go into partnership with any developer.

The O’Neil- Dion government wants to ensure that the people have a stake in any development that will happen on their land.

But remember… your land is wealth and it is where you will fall back too after your retirement.  Please, don’t give away your birthright.

With all respect to the policies that the Government is creating, this all serves the interests of development, which are developers.

Who are here to take land to expend businesses that give to the community but squeeze millions out from the Seven million in this country, 80% of whom are still underdeveloped.

This is the underdeveloped that live our rural areas that don’t get much in government services.

But, the question is how can the government protect landowners from phony investors that can bribe “the people that matter” to get land titles on alienated ground.

This is where a fully functional and transparent land board including physical planning board comes in.

But, the Morobe Lands board was dismantled in recent years due to allegations of mismanagement and corruption that has resulted in huge backlog of land problems- that hopefully will be dealt with.

The Physical Planning Department says they are aware that some land board members have been doing illegal deals with developers.

They have also admitted that their lawyers have a tough time defending officers that are really guilty.