Bring land inside sovereign territory

THE Yangoru-Saussia District Development Authority (DDA) wants to boost business opportunities for local communities by building markets along the Sepik Highway.
And so, the DDA is building markets at Munji, Haniak, Womayan and Yekimbole, which will allow local communities to sell and buy goods.
The plan, by the district representative and International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru is, of course, a good one. But, there is a catch.
Maru says it requires the State committing K600,000 to acquire customary land.
Therein lies the rub, not just in this locality but throughout Papua New Guinea.
Wherever and whenever good ideas are born, they are almost immediately beset by the availability of the land factor.
Development does not occur in the air.
Remove land and no amount of planning or of committing financial resources will amount to anything.
The common denominator to all physical development is land.
With land being available, affordable and accessible, socio-economic development can occur easily.
Without it, a huge problem is introduced to the development equation.
And it all happens because land was never discussed seriously when the founding fathers discussed self-government and independence for PNG.
In about 1973, a Royal Commission of Inquiry was held into land.
That inquiry showed the government of Chief Minister Michael Thomas Somare at the time how spiky a thorn land was going to be.
Since then, land has been a no-go zone to be avoided, especially by politicians, if you valued your job – literally.
Paias Wingti and Julius Chan, veteran politicians and prime ministers both, found that most painfully to their everlasting dismay, when they tried to – along with the World Bank – register customary land in PNG in 1996.
They were tossed from government in the ensuing backlash.
And so, when Independence was declared at midnight of Sept 15, 1975, much of the 460,000 square kilometres of land in PNG was not sovereign territory.
It did not belong to the newly-independent State of PNG but to the many thousands of independent tribal groupings throughout PNG.
Indeed, the Land Act of 1996, is patently clear on this.
Part II, section 4, which deals with national title to land, states: “(1) All land in the country other than customary land is the property of the State, subject to any estates, rights, titles or interests in force under any law.

“As with nearly all proposed development standards, the goal is to encourage efficient land use, flexibility and a wide variety of housing types while reducing the potential for negative impacts.” – Bill Vaughan

“(2) All estate, right, title and interest other than customary rights in land at any time held by a person are held under the State.”
The government has rights, it can be concluded, to only to three per cent of the land.
Under section 5, declaration of State land, the law states: “(1) The Minister, may, by notice in the National Gazette, declare that any land that appears to him not be customary land, shall … by notice declared to be State land”. Again, customary land appears to play its mischief.
Even those parts in Part III of the law that gives the State powers to acquire land, even by compulsory acquisition, is clear that the Minister also deals with that part of the land which is called “alienated land – which is referred to as government land”.
“That comprises about three per cent of the land area of PNG,” the Land Act states with reference to alienated land. “The rest, 97 per cent, is held in customary hands.
“The Land Act specifies customary land at length and the manner of its acquisition and compensation for it.”
Beyond this, the Land Act and the Government are helpless.
Sovereignty, or the power to govern, ends at this point, it seems.
And this is the country’s long enduring lack-of-development problem and it will long endure into perpetuity until and unless the State can change the law or the circumstances surrounding the land tenure system in the country.
Land is a politician’s nightmare, that is for sure.
And yet, it is this nation’s saving grace.
It has to be attempted, or all talk on development is wasted effort.