Landowners call on Hela to make ‘fair’ payments

 By JAMES APA GUMUNO 

TARI airport landowners in Hela have called on the provincial administration to pay them according to the acreage of land.

Timon Henry, the spokesman from the Kia/Kopira clan, one of the 10 major clans that own the airport land, said that genuine landowners must be identified before payment was made.

Henry said K10 million given by the national government for the landowners was held in a trust account by the Hela provincial administration.

He said his clan owned 8.3ha of land in portion 107 now used by PNG LNG developer Esso Highlands and a major contractor, Curtain Brothers.

“I would like the Hela provincial administration and land mediators now going around identifying the landowners to pay landowners according to the hectares of land they own,” he said.

Henry said that no proper landowner identification was carried out during the colonial period.

“My clan was given K450 for our land and that was it.

“No more payments were made after this,” he said.

He added that the Hela provincial government made the right decision to keep the money in the trust account.

“I want to thank Governor Anderson Agiru and acting provincial administrator William Bando for taking the initiative to address the landowner issue,” he said.

Henry said the provincial administration engaged land mediators, who went around starting on Tuesday to identify landowners.

They would complete the exercise tomorrow.

Henry said the landowners wanted the airport land payment issue resolved amicably.