Church to develop land

 After 100 years, the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea has agreed to develop a piece of prime land in the heart of Downtown Port Moresby.

Church PNG Archbishop Clyde Igara and Independent Private Business Corporation managing director Wasantha Kumarasiri signed a memorandum of understanding for the development in Port Moresby yesterday. 

Kumarasiri said the Anglican Church had the land title for many  years but could not develop it because of a lack of money. 

The land borders with a plot acquired by IPBC and the corporation plans to develop a tower for commercial purposes. 

“But, we decided to build a twin-tower and approached the Anglican Church, which has agreed to build another tower on their land,” Kumarasiri said.

St John’ s Anglican Church Parish chairman James Raurela said the church had the title for 100 years and  many large  companies had offered them amounts of up to  K7 million to buy the land.  

“But we did not give in until IPBC offered us a partnership to develop the land so we can have an asset to generate funds for us to manage our churches. 

“We have health centres, nursing colleges, with secondary and community schools throughout the country to manage,” he said.