KOMO Magarima MP Francis Potape has called on disgruntled Moran landowners to resolve their grievances at an appropriate forum and not to take the law into their own hands.
He also urged the Department of Petroleum and Energy and Oil Search Ltd to treat the Northwest Moran project separately from PDL 5.
He added that he had warned the department of possible landowner problems spilling over.
“If it had heeded my warning, the shameful incident at the Jackson’s Airport would not have happened,” he said referring to last Monday’s brawl between rival landowners.
Mr Potape said the department and Oil Search should allow the landowners the opportunity to select their own leaders to represent them at the development forum.
He said Northwest Moran was small compared to Kutubu and Moran PDL 5 but given the current high prices, it could greatly benefit the landowners, provincial government, the National Government and developer (Oil Search).
He said the Government and the developer should not use the size of the oilfield to down play landowner issues.
Mr Potape said the other problem was that after social mapping was conducted and landowner identification was done, there was no awareness carried out and no issuance of ILG certificates to genuine landowners.
He urged Minister William Duma to invite him and Governor Anderson Agiru to the planned meeting between landowners to resolve the issues before a forum was held.