Land issue

THROUGHOUT the country, the colonial administration – Germany, Britain and Australia – as well our Government in recent years acquired parcels of customary land.
These were for the establishment of plantations, missions, and our main towns and cities as well as Government outstations or patrol posts as they used to be known in the old days.
Some of these early acquisition were made, as 19th century records show, in the form of ownerless declarations, material goods like sticks of tobacco, handkerchiefs, axes, etc and others in small monetary terms.
During the German colonisation period, however, there was some dissent shown by some landowners against the manner in which the Germans were acquiring land, which resulted in a number of killings of foreigners.
Similarly, in the period leading up to and after independence, the country also experienced a number of sporadic land compensation demands or claims popping up from the former traditional landowners.
Among the reasons for such claims were that the purchase price for this Government land was inadequate in proportion to the level of development that was then taking place, thereon.
Thus, as a consequence, the national Government enacted the National Land Registration Act (NLRA) purposely to address these claims or sentiments over land acquisitions made before and after independence.
The NLRA mainly covered land owned by the Government currently being used for public institutional purposes, like our declared towns or cities or Government outstations but does not cover private leases like agricultural land, for instance.
The NLRA process commences with the Government declaring the particular Government land in the National Gazette, as ‘National Land’.
These gazettal notices are widely publicised in the provinces and districts where the land is situated.
Within the specified period, the claimants (former traditional landowners) would then lodge their settlement claims to the registrar of the National Lands Commission (NLC) or the minister responsible.
After the expiry period the NLC, through a single commissioner then proceeds to hear and determine the settlement claims, through public hearings in the provinces where the land is situated.
Under the NLRA, there is a basic amount of settlement payment schedule that the NLC Commissioner uses to calculate the final settlement claims, if the claims lodged by former traditional landowners are admitted.
The NLC Commissioner may, however, recommend to increase the total amount calculated by an amount not exceeding 50 per cent, if it sees that the land is relatively small.
There are some recorded instances where the NLC Commissioner made final settlement orders that were not in compliance with basic schedule of payments as required under the NLRA.
The commissioner, in these instances, made orders amounting to hundreds of thousands of kina in excess of the amount as stipulated by law.
Of course, these orders were later invalidated by the courts, by means of judicial review.
No appeal lies against the decision of the NLC Commissioner, otherwise, than from the grounds of failure by it to comply with the principles of natural justice.
The Lands Department and provincial administrators must now take stock of all Government land within their provinces that has yet to be declared as National Land to do so now.
There is need for the government to ensure that its properties or assets are protected now from any potential future claims for compensation by disgruntled groups of new generation landowners.

Lawrence Billy
Hospital Hill
Lae