Land owners cause of delays

GULF Governor Chris Haiveta’s advertorial in The National compels me to make some comments on issues surrounding outstanding royalties for oil and gas resources at South East Gobe and Gobe Main areas, situated at the Gulf and Southern Highland common land boundaries.
While I do entirely agree with the lengthy delay in payments of royalties to landowners, it must be stressed here that both the developers of oil and gas resources and the State are not to be taken as scapegoats for these unfortunate situations.
Royalties have been duly paid for by developers to the State, as required under the Oil and Gas Act, and are being held in the Petroleum Resources Gobe (PRG) trust account with Minerals Resources Development Corporation, (MRDC), ready to be paid out once the land ownership disputes are finally resolved.
Haiveta should have undertaken some due diligence on the issues with landowner clan leaders on the ground before coming out in the media to shed out his concerns, although he was mainly referencing to the ongoing Supreme Court case issue on the releasing of royalties directly to PRG.
For his benefit, the delay in royalty payments had been caused by the landowners themselves, who had continued to this day since 1991, arguing or squabbling amongst themselves over legitimate ownership of land areas covering the oil and gas reserves, (both petroleum development licenses 3 and 4).
It is unfortunate that this had been the main cause or reason for the delay in payments of royalties to landowners by the Government.
The matter had continued to be litigated through our legal systems (land titles commission, national and supreme courts and the alternative dispute resolution processes) but unfortunately had not been able to be settled.
The current status of the situation, as I understand it, is that the matter had again been referred to the land titles commission to deliberate on land ownership disputes issues, as both the Supreme and the National courts don’t have powers to deal with customary land ownership disputes cases.
Until such issues are resolved, no royalties will be paid to anyone by the Government.

Lorenitz Gaius
Lae