Abel sees wealth in land leases

By HELEN TARAWA
Landowners must be encouraged to use their customary land lease to create income and grow their own wealth, Sir Christopher Abel says.
Sir Christopher, father of deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel, attended the two-day Southern regional land summit in Port Moresby last week.
He said that as the value of land goes up, so will the rent and that is the best way for long-term wealth creation.
Sir Christopher made a presentation on a case study in Alotau on the management and administration of customary land sub-division projects.
“We’ve got to see more landowner groups getting involved, getting a freehold through incorporated land groups, getting sub-divisions, selling their user rights via the customary leases and earning good income,” Sir Christopher said.
“I’m very pro legislation. The land group has a freehold title.
“They issue leases against the title, they don’t lose the land but they sell the user rights to people.
“They get income from the sale.
“In the long-term, the value of the land goes up, the rent goes up and that’s the best way of long-term wealth creation.”
Sir Christopher said cities in PNG had a large proportion of ownership of the land under customary landowners
“I’m sure there would be happier towns and more opportunities to the younger ones,” he said.
“A lot of things that are going wrong in the urban centres today would be solved because they would be busy running their own real estate businesses and making money and prospering with development and the growth of towns.
“There are a lot of problems in managing and administrating a customary sub-division.
“The Lands Department is doing a good job in terms of expediting things and getting them done quickly.”