Identifying genuine landowners challenging, summit told

THE identification of genuine landowners is the biggest challenge facing the country, a lands summit was told.
Benjamin Samson, the acting deputy secretary for the Land Services and Registrar of Titles PNG presented during the summit some options of identifying landowners.
“These means or options were identified from data collected during regional land summit in the four regions,” he said.
“We are presenting what is recorded or what was said during the regional land summit as those means of identifying landowners may vary from region to region.
“From the four regions’ views, landowners can be identified through National Identification (NID), central claims, genealogy, chief system, clan vetting, traditional leadership, land demarcations, village court magistrate, church pastors, land mediators, family listing (census).”
Samson said PNG is diverse and people were coming up with different ways to identify their landowners.
However as a country, he said there should be a single process of identification.
“The proposed resolution for verification and validation is that legal and administrative framework for landowner identification should be flexible and allow for the use of existing social structures,” Samson said.
“Also traditional decision-making structures and administrative processes such as village courts, village councillors, land courts and National Identification (NID) should be considered.”
A female representative from Mamose region disagreed with the church pastors to be one of the means to identify the landowners.
“There are international pastors in the country who do not know well the history of the clans and may make wrong decisions,” she said.
Samson said the presentation only highlighted what was captured in the regional meetings.