Landowners need to be identified

IT is a tense moment for the landowners of the US$19 billion PNG LNG project in the Hela, Western, Southern Highlands, Gulf and Central.
The landowners have not received a single toea from the Department of Petroleum and Energy (DPE) and Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) after more than 350 shipments of raw LNG cargo.
The reasons for the delay in the payments for the royalty and equities are twofold.
First, the government has realised that the amount of revenue that is generated from the export of LNG is not sufficient to pay all the landowners in the upstream, pipeline and downstream segments up to a certain length of time.
However, the recent announcement in the media that the LNG project landowners will get their money is good news and should be commended.
The second reason, and one which is due to a mistake, is the non-identification of the landowner through the social-mapping and clan-vetting processes.
It is widely understood that the State failed to undertake the clan-vetting process before the signing of the Umbrella Benefit Sharing Agreement (UBSA) and Landowner Benefit Sharing Agreement (LBSA) of the PNG LNG project in line with the Oil and Gas Act, 1998.
While the social-mapping and clan-vetting processes have been successfully completed in the downstream segment, the same processes in the upstream segment have been derailed by a mixture of incompetent staff, landowner disputes and a lack of cooperation.
This is a mistake from the government because it undertook to sign the UBSA and LBSA without first figuring out the legitimate landowners, therefore allowing a selected few to sign on behalf of the unknown majority.
The social-mapping and clan-vetting processes are not complicated issues and the GCO and DPE should confidently undertake to complete it as soon as possible in light of the payment of K15 million to the landowners of the plant site in Central and the availability of royalty money in a trust account at the Central Bank.
But the ministerial announcement in the media that the social-mapping and clan-vetting processes will be considered in October is welcome news.
The simple contractual requirements in every commercial operations is the identification of the beneficiaries and how the proceeds should be shared among them.

Mike Haro