Source: PNGexposed blog

Lands Department Secretary Romily Kila Pat has has his dirty thieving hands all over the SABL land grab scandal – as we detail below.

But this is the man Prime Minister Peter O’Neill is entrusting with the job of revoking the illegal leases!

This is a complete joke and it shows just how shallow the Prime Minister’s commitment is to dealing with the SABL land grab.

Source: The National

THE Department of Lands and Physical Planning has started the process of cancelling 25 Special Agriculture Business Leases identified by the Commission of Inquiry reports.

Department secretary Romilly Kila-Pat has directed the Registrar of Titles to immediately start work on revoking the leases.

Kila-Pat told reporters that a special SABL taskforce would be appointed by the ministerial committee on SABL.

By KONOPA KANA, POST COURIER

AN INDEPENDENT task force set up by the government will carry out investigations into the commission of inquiry (COI) on the special agriculture business leases (SABLs) uncompleted reports.

This was revealed by the Secretary for the Department of Lands and Physical Planning Romilly Kila Pat in a press conference yesterday.

The details of which government agencies and appointees to head the taskforce will soon be announced by the government through the National Executive Council.

Source: PNGexposed blog

The headlines and reporting over the SABL announcement by the Prime Minister have been very misleading. Despite what you might have read or heard:

Comment: The Government is using the SABL scandal to push land registration, but land registration is a dangerous exercise as it can quickly lead to land alienation, and with corruption rife in the Department of Lands nobody should trust the government with their most precious resource...

Source: The National

OWNERS of customary land affected by the Government’s decision to revoke Special Agriculture and Business Leases have been urged to register their land and become title-holders.

Source: The National

CUSTOMARY land ownership in the country has been reduced from 97% to 86% because of the number of Special Agriculture and Business Leases issued since the 1990s, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says.

He said the 77 SABLs referred to the Commission of Inquiry for investigation involved around 5.2 million hectares of land.

ACT NOW! and BRG JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

ACT NOW! and the Bismarck Ramu Group have warned the Prime Minister that landowners will not be satisfied until they know the NEC decision to cancel the unlawful SABL leases and amend the Land Act has been implemented.

They are also calling on the National Forest Board to immediately revoke the Forest Clearance Authorities granted under the SABL leases and stop the illegal logging.

POST COURIER, June 20, 2014

BY MELISSA MARTIN, Post Courier, 11th June 2014

THE National Research Institute is of the view that the special agriculture business leases has leakages and need to be changed. The National Research Institute’s property sector development program leader Dr Charles Yala said this last week during the launching of a draft policy on issues and lessons drawn from laws relating to SABLs.

He said the policy needs to be changed into the new volun-tary customary land registration (ILG)’s process and that will provide a framework for a way forward.

Source: PNG Loop

A legal adviser to the Prime Minister  has defended the Government’s record in fighting corruption, citing the action against the controversial SABL land deals.

Ms Tiffany Twivey-Nonggorr, law firm partner, said on Facebook today that the Government had “just killed the biggest corrupt dealings of the past 10 years’’.