Land standard sought for PNG

Papua New Guinea must adopt international best practice standards for land administration and property management to ensure broad-based economic development, according to the National Research Institute (NRI)
NRI associate professor Eugene Ezebilo said most of the state land was already used up and attention was now on utilising customary land.
“Currently the customary land is not yet bankable. If we adopt an international standard we will be able to draw from other parts of the world and see how they have dealt with their customary land and bring it to the market,” Ezebilo said.
“There are guidelines to achieve international standards but we lack the capacity and technology to implement it in PNG. This is where we need government support to help fund and facilitate this move.
“Investors will not be scared of investing in customary land if we adopt international best practice and that will mean landowners will benefit from investments. Apart from that there will be more jobs for people and the state will get also more money from taxes.”
He said the government was losing money through the squatter settlements in places like Port Moresby, through illegal electricity and water connections.
He said rather than evicting people in squatter settlements the government could provide land titles and basic services and collect tax from it.
Ezebilo said adopting international standards would require land administrators to be registered in an association, which would promote transparency and good management of land. “This will include a standard practice of valuing land and properties appropriately,” Ezebilo said.
“Currently, some of these values are inflated and some are underestimated.”
He said an example was the colonial system of valuation of properties in Port Moresby where people were paying about K20 for land rent.