Landowners set to receive benefits

By KARO JESSE
A GROUP of Kutubu landowners from Southern Highlands will finally be paid their benefits after a four-year court battle.
The landowners from Kutubu PDL (petroleum development licence) 2 are set to access their royalties and equity payments that were stopped in the first quarter of 2016.
The National Court yesterday dismissed proceedings filed by Yaferaka incorporated land group (ILG), in which it was granted a restraining order on April 15, 2016.
Justice Thomas Anis also ordered that the interim injunctions in place be lifted as well, prior to the case dismissal.
Yaferaka ILG is one of the 117 members which make up the Namo’Aporo Landowner Association (NLA).
NLA is made up of registered land groups incorporated by landowning clans from the Fasu tribe which is one of the two major tribes in Kutubu where the current Kutubu petroleum project is situated.
In 2016, Yaferaka ILG filed a court proceeding claiming that the Kutubu project was a project commissioned under the Petroleum Act and in which no social mapping was conducted and appealed to the court to restrain payments of royalties and equities to landowners unless social mapping was conducted.
The court granted the interim restraining orders.
In 2019, NLA filed an application in court seeking to dismiss the proceeding and lift the injunction as it claimed that the proceeding was filed by a previous management committee.
NLA through its lawyer Edward Waifaf submitted that the restraining orders granted on the latter date was when NLA was under the administration of Sakai Kei as the public officer and he was also the chairman of Yaferaka ILG when he filed the proceeding.
NLA management was changed on June 8, 2019, and the new management claimed that the restraining order obtained by the previous administration was prejudice.