Little land left for big projects, says registrar

THE 99-year land lease in the country has been exhausted, leaving no land available for major agricultural development for investors, Registrar of District Courts Clivson Philip says.
He said this yesterday during the signing of the Madang tripartite memorandum of understanding (MOU) by the Madang government, district development authorities, magisterial services and Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
Philip said most land fit for big agriculture developments were tied up in court disputes around the country, leaving no land free for these big potential developments.
“There is not much land for developers who want to do big investments in the country,” he said.
“We just don’t have the size of land for that kind of project.”
Philip said most of the land was owned by clans which already had titles.
These clan were also embroiled in disputes of their own.
“Most good land that should be made available to investors is tied up in land issues, conflicts and all sorts of disputes,” Philip said.
He said there was not enough manpower to do land courts, which was why the MOU signing took place.
“We are writing all these assumptions into a workable arrangement to work on over the next two years, while we make sure we have enough resources before we sign a memorandum-of-agreement (MOA),” he said. Bogia district has taken the lead in building court facilities and magistrate’s house.
Madang magistrate Josephine Kilage confirmed that there were lots of outstanding land matters in court, especially in the districts.
Kilage has been visiting and hearing court disputes in Bogia over the last few weeks.
She recommended that all other districts in Madang start making arrangement to bring courts down to the districts to deal with land matters.