Association supports landowners’ concern over entitlements

The Forest Industries Association has expressed its strongest support for landowners’ concerns over the confusion created, and now becoming critical, surrounding the collection and payment of forest landowner royalties and project development levies.
“Resulting from the Government’s new Public Money Management Regularisation Act, landowner benefit payments collected from industry and held in trust by the Forest Authority until paid, usually every three or six months, are now being held by the Finance Department.” FIA executive officer Bob Tate said.
“Finance have no way of ever paying this money to the rightful landowners.
“They would have to return it to the authority for distribution.”
Tate questioned whether Finance would be able to do this on time and without any hidden deductions.
“Landowners know fully well their entitlements and payment dates,” he said.
“Landowners out in the rural areas often rely on their royalties and levy payments as their sole source of income.
“Why was the landowners’ trust money caught up by the new (Public Money Management Regulation) Act when the Act was meant to apply only to public money?”
Tate said uncertainty created by the new Act had now spread to the rural areas. He said they were already receiving reports of disruptions and shut downs of forest projects due to the non-payment of royalties.
“We expect more operations to face similar problems as the landowner payments fall in the coming weeks,” Tate said.
“One forest project closed last week. Last year it paid to the landowners some K650,000 in cash royalties and benefits and paid taxes to the Government of over K3.1 million.
“If the situation is not corrected urgently by the Government, such losses of income will only continue to increase.”
Tate called on responsible Government agencies, Finance Department, Treasury, and the Forest Authority, to immediately address the problems created by the new act.
He said Government should issue clear guidelines to the industry and landowners on how landowner cash benefits were to be collected and paid, both outstanding payments and in future.