Laws against landowners

This is in response to Mining Minister and Namatanai MP Byron Chan commenting on the above in yesterday’s newspaper (April 27), to the people at West Coast Namatanai.
The Customary Land Law of Papua New Guinea, which is driven on the Customary Land Foundation and the base of the Communal Land Development Ltd disagree with the Mining Minister.
Accordingly, the land, waters, seas and even the airspace is own by the Customary Land Owners of PNG.
That means, the Parliamentarians like Byron Chan are also landowners owning the sea.
If we are the landowners, why use laws that are against ourselves by gaining less from the projects than the Investors.
The ownership of the Customary Land and Resources are not only own by Government, the Province and the Local Level Government but every Papua New Guineans.
Government only owns 3 per cent of the total land mass compared to PNG customary land owners at 97 per cent.
The problem is that our leaders are not addressing the major customary land issue on the Stop Customary Land Grabbing which is the consequences of corruption and poverty in PNG.
Government passed the Underlying Law Act 2000 but nothing has been done.
When is the Government going to use our very own Customary Laws?

Dr Onne Rageau, MD
The Founder of Customary Land
Law (PNG)