Genuine highway landowners paid

I WRITE in reply to your story “Unpaid locals block h’way” (The National, Dec 28) because you reporter did not do research to establish the background to which the Works Department conducted a verification or auditing of valuations conducted earlier under the former administration resulting in exorbitant payments made without proper checks and balances.
Works Department contracted Mori Resources to use a sophisticated GIS Map Inf Satellite Mapping system to accurately establish the 40m reserve along the road corridor of the Highlands Highway.
The contract is between the Independent State of PNG and Mori Resources. In matters of contracting, only the legitimate contract awarding body has the power to terminate if there is a breach by either party by exercising the relevant clause applicable. No one else outside of the contracting party has the right to terminate a contract.
Mori Resources is using a non-transferable licence accessing information from Nasa through Pitney Bowes Software Pty Ltd of Sydney, Australia. All data from the field is processed and hot linked to a main server at Works Department headquarters. The system is so accurate there is no room for error. The system picks up current details of structures and NOT outdated as some would think.
It is false to claim that Mori Resources omitted some names and landowners were underpaid. The satellite mapping system accurately plotted the structures on the ground in fixed coordinates and only the structures falling with the 40m road corridor have been picked up for payment. Those structures eliminated are outside the corridor and will not be paid because there is no reason to do so.
Moreover, structures are valued and paid in accordance with valuations done using statutory rates by the state through its agent the Lands and Physical Planning Department.
Mori Resources has not defied the minister’s instructions. The minister had been briefed about the contractual obligation. It took four years to do this exercise and to put a proper system of managing road corridor issues in place. We are now in the process of concluding the whole auditing process with the paying out of cheques to the genuine structural owners within the 40m corridor.
We have also worked towards developing a legislation to protect transport infrastructure assets which has now been ratified by parliament and gazetted under G177 on July 17 last year. Skyco System does not have a legitimate state contract as yet. It is a new equity and we do not know what systems and processes it has to link up the completed data to the Works Department headquarters server. It is not just about making payments. There are a whole range of activities involved.
I take offence to John Kawage’s baseless and unfounded statements claiming that everything was done in secrecy. This is an open and transparent exercise for which we require support from all stakeholders without asking for too much fees.
Mori Resources is the legitimately contracted entity with the systems and processes in place to hotlink all necessary information to the Works Department’s main server which can only be operated by a licence that cannot be transferred to others. Therefore that is the right entity to conclude this exercise.

Joel Luma
Works Secretary