Landowners see urgent need for titles body

LANDOWNERS of the Wafi-Golpu mining project in Morobe are calling on the National Government to appoint a land titles commission (LTC) to look into the landowner issues before the project goes into full operation.
Chairman of the Vunu clan of Wafi-Golpu, Amos Darius told The National that all the landowners wanted was for the Government to reappoint the three commissioners to determine the real ownership of the land before the project starts.
“The National Government appointed three land titles commissioners in the past for them to go and determine the ownership and identify the real owners before the project can start,” he said.
“The three LTC officers went and were doing their work to identify the real landowners and assisted in identifying the boundaries but their appointments were revoked by some politicians.
“For that reason, the three LTCs pulled back. Therefore, now we the landowners want the National Government to take a closer look into
this matter and fund the LTC to go back and determine the ownership before any memorandum of understanding or memorandum of agreement can be signed by the landowners.”