Clan-vetting exercise to be completed soon

Hela Governor Philip Undialu expects the clan-vetting exercise to be completed soon for landowners to start receiving their long-overdue payments.
He told The National at the weekend that the process should already be underway but for a number of unnecessary court cases.
Undialu said the Department of Petroleum had come up with the position that clan-vetting and alternate dispute resolution (ADR) must go hand-in-hand.
“Let’s allow the department to carry out its responsibility under the Oil and Gas Act, identify the landowners, and if there are any disputes, ADR team is on standby to mediate,” he said.
“Where there is no problem with mediation and all these, then we issue certificates and release the funds. That’s the process that we’re taking, instead of ADR team and the department fighting for the same thing.
“We are now aligning ourselves.
“State lawyers are now working on an application to chart a way forward to fast-track the process.
“The delay many times is because of the landowners themselves. It’s only the clan-vetting process that filters and recognises landowners.”