Govt keen to make landowners happy

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THE government is committed to the process of satisfying landowners at the PNG LNG project site, Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel says.
Responding to Opposition leader Patrick Pruaitch regarding the shutting down of the project on Monday, he said a lot of issues that the current government was dealing with went back to the whole exercise of identifying the real landowners.
He said PNG LNG was one of the most successful gas projects in the world in terms of delivery on time and within budget.
Abel said it was important for the future of the country, and the government was concerned and was aware about what was going on.
“The clan-vetting exercise and process was not completed fully at the commencement of this project,” Abel said.
“Unfortunately, we continue to deal with this particular issue and it is not easy, particularly after the project has commenced.”
Abel said the government was doing its best to allocate resources to complete the exercise.
“Recently as we attempted to commence to reactivate that process of vetting but it has been halted again by interventions around the previous decisions made,” he said.
“You will see as we go forward in the budget process, those funds continue to be allocated.”