Clan vetting and landowner rights

IN 2009, when the Umbrella Benefits Sharing Agreement (UBSA) and subsequent licence-based benefits sharing agreements(LBBSAs) were signed, no proper landowner identification was carried out.
The Oil and Gas Act clearly calls for social mapping to precede any issuance of licence (PDL), however, in the interest of the State for the present PNG LNG project to be completed, the PDLs were issued.
The new greenfield PDLs 9, 7 and 8, and PDL 1 is an existing field that was previously and also presently converting gas to electricity for Porgera and now in the PNG LNG project.
The PNG LNG is a unitised project integrating new PDLs and old PDLs like 1, 2 (Kutubu), 3 or 4 (Gobe, one of them was left out), and 5 and 6 (the Moran oil fields).
You then have the landowners of more than 700km of pipeline LOs and the processing facility landowners here at Papa Lealea.
All in all the project embraces five provincial government and over 60,000 people who claim some landowning rights in the project area footprints.
Since 2009, government through DPE has tried attending to social mapping but among many hindering factors, including government (public service) incompetence, numerous court processes have stalled the full completion of landowner IDs through clan-vetting processes.
All our agencies of state (DPE, DJAG, Lands, courts like the judge Kandakasi’s ADR processes) have been trying to bring this matter to conclusion but with the complexity of social structures, especially upstream and many contesting court references on these issues, including fighting for funds, meant that for projects like IDG, we have not fully completed the clan vetting and landowners’ ID task.
However, as we speak, areas like the plant site is completed and landowners have access to their funds (first benefit paid) and DPE and MRDC are almost completing the pipeline segment and Kutubu and Gobe with Moran are brown fields, so should be okay.
However, member for Tari Pori and Finance Minister James Marape has told DPE that this month he will be in Hela to help them complete the processes so that the funds in central bank (over K300 million) can be released to the beneficiary groups.
One underlying factor that continues to create tension in clan vetting is the contest of those big boys in the PDLs who want to become chairman of the PDL, hence they also try influencing their relatives in DPE to accept their own version of clan membership in the PDLs.
Marape also has told the DPE to ensure a public policy of one term of four years and a rotating chairmanship policy.
He said we can’t blame one government or one person or one department, few elite land owners(LOs), and all of us have failed to rally in a unified transparent manner in clan-vetting exercise thus far.

Nathan Liwago