Landowners yet to be paid

HAVING read Luwi James’ letter on Sept 10 regarding land and benefit distribution disputes, I note that he is well versed on what he has written.
I have been participating in land disputes since the Special Land Title Commission (SLTC) commenced the Land Title Tribunal hearing in 2011. I note three points Luwi mentioned.
Firstly, genuine customary landowners not identified is very true.
When the SLTC declared the landowners for Kurumbukari (SML 8) land, it declared block landowners and block land users to individuals, individual families and group of people under named individuals.
The commission declared land users and distributed users rights percentage on Aug 14, 2013 and left.
No genuine customary landowners were identified and declared.
Secondly, Luwi is right in saying royalty paid to individuals was a decision of the SLTC under the Land Users Rights Act and Royalties. The actual customary landowners are yet to be paid.
Royalties paid to the landowners of Kurumbukari, Basamuk Refinery, Coastal Pipeline and the Inland Pipelines under the Users Right Act include damage payments, compensation payments, occupation payments and land use rentals only.
The royalties for the genuine landowner still remains to be paid.
Royalties for genuine customary landowner clans for SML land lease rentals, environmental damages, 2.5 percent equity and others is yet to be paid after being identified in the courts.
These royalties for genuine landowners should be paid annually.
I presume these monies have accumulated over time.
The last point is about SLTC not undertaking its responsibility accordingly.
There could be a reason why they only identified land users and left.
Section 15 of the Land Title Commission Act 1962 clearly states that in settling land disputes , two landowners should be identified, firstly the landowner by custom and secondly, land user by custom.
To date no customary landowner was identified.
This leaves the SLTC Kurumbukari land hearing incomplete for opportunists to try their luck.
As a result, it has increased the work load for the Madang Court to identify a genuine customary landowner – as stated by Luwi.

Observer