By HARLYNE JOKU
DEPUTY Prime Minister and Minister for Mining and Lands and Physical Planning Dr Puka Temu has invited the private sector to assist with the current land reforms.
He said the customary land ownership issue was complex and its availability for economic and social development was difficult but there were solutions that could be reached.
He was speaking at the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Holiday Inn on Tuesday.
Dr Temu told business representatives that the Government needed the private sector’s understanding and support for the reforms to work.
He said he believed the proposed land reforms would work because the state of the economy not only gave the Government flexibility required but presented many opportunities a well.
He added that the private sector could be a partner to the Government in the outsourcing of programmes to help capacity building and in making agencies of the Government more efficient.
Dr Temu said the reform was about empowering Papua New Guineans to take legitimate control over the registration and use of their land either as individuals or in partnership with others having mutual interest.
He said that the approach also encouraged landowners to embrace and appreciate values and interest of businesses and investors within a legal framework of landownership entered into voluntarily and without duress.
Dr Temu stressed that the legal framework protected businesses and investors from landowners, who renegade on a legal contract at a later date.
“You will all agree with me that the reforms provide an excellent opportunity for a win-win partnership between landowners, the Government and private sector.
“The objectives and intention of the reforms are already at work in some sectors in projects such as the oil palm estates, mining, petroleum, forestry and fisheries, to name some examples,” Dr Temu said.