Duma urged to clarify criteria used in making payments

By JUNIOR UKAHA
PETROLEUM and Energy Minister William Duma has been asked to clarify the criteria he used in the “ministerial determination” for payments to landowners in Juha PDL 9.
Juha Energy Resources Ltd chairman Hapialu Tami said the interim ministerial determination in March last year had not identified all the genuine landowners.
Juha Energy Resources is the landowner company representing the Sinali clan of Juha PDL 9.
Tami claimed there had been no proper land demarcation, social mapping and landowner identification done in Juha so it was not possible for the minister to come up with a list of possible landowners and landowner companies to make payments to.
“I was at Juha before I came here (Moresby). Never at any time did Duma and his team come and do social mapping and landowner identification,” he said.
Another landowner from the area, Alex Arabia, said Hengepe Haluya, chairman of Juha Landowners Association (JLA) was a “paper landowner” based in Port Moresby and did not have land near the Juha PDL 9 project area.
Haluya had taken out a paid advertisement in the Post Courier on Monday claiming that JLA was  the “umbrella political mouthpiece” of the customary landowners of Juha PDL 9.
“I am surprised how his association is acting as the mouth-piece of Juha PDL 9 landowners,” he said.
“His (Haluya’s) village is 20km from Siabi village where the project is based. He has no land in Juha PDL 9,” Arabia said.
“How were Haluya and others who had no land in the vicinity of the Juha PDL 9 project area selected to represent the real landowners at the UBSA and LBBSA signings?” he asked.
He urged the government to properly screen and award contracts to genuine landowner companies and “not paper landowners with political connections operating from Port Moresby”.
Tami said the Juha PDL 9 land was owned by the Sinali, Tugupa and Febi clans, which shared the border between Hela and Western provinces.
Of the six blocks identified by the developer, “five belongs to Hela while one belongs to Western”.
Tami said any future signing between the developer and the resource owners must take place at the project site at Siabi village and not at any other location.