Landowners want MoA funds released this week

MORAN landowners want memorandum of agreement (MoA) funds to be released by this weekend.
The landowners of Petroleum Development Licence (PDL) 5 and 6 said that the K100 million allocated for the outstanding MoA would greatly change the lives of the majority of the rural people.
Moran oil head principal landowner spokesman John Pipi Kila said last Friday that the money allocated under the 2011 national budget for the MoA allocation was not a free handout.
Kila said the money allocated would be used to implement outstanding government commitments, under the MoA, for infrastructure development.
He said it was not a business development grant, adding that most of the funds would be used to meet outstanding commitments for the people of Moran PDL5, PDL6, Hides, Kutubu and Gobe projects.
Kila said the government had already paid K180 million in outstanding MoA funding but there was nothing to show on the ground.
He said, two weeks ago, Finance and Treasury Minister Peter O’Neill promised to release K653.3 million for the outstanding umbrella benefits sharing agreement but this had not been released.
He claimed the LNG project was likely to be affected if the government did not release funds before the end of the year.