LNG landowners happy with clan vetting exercise

 Landowners of the Hides and Juha LNG project areas are happy with the completion of the clan vetting done last year.

The vetting was done to identify the right landowners of the project impacted areas.

On behalf of the Tuguba Pepe-Mbele tribe, chairman Peter Hewara thanked the minister for petroleum and energy, department secretary, Rendle Rimua and his officers for completing the process satisfactorily.

Hewara said the department was finalising the report on the clan vetting and it should be out soon.

He said if there were any changes to be made to the clan vetting data, the landowners should know about  them and they should be witnessed by the relevant authorities and stakeholders. The landowners are in the process of establishing an association that will be the mouth-piece to address issues from the Hides and Juha project areas.

Heware said they were willing to work in partnership with the national government through the Department of Petroleum and Energy, the developer and stakeholders to overcome any landowner issue.

The Tuguba-Pepe-Mbele tribe formed a company called the Hides Tuguba-Pepeko Investment Ltd to make use of the opportunity created by the LNG project.

Heware said the project would bring about investment opportunities and basic services not provided by the government for many years.

He said the LNG project to be operating soon would bring vast benefits to the impacted areas and the nation and it depended on the strategy they used to participate in the benefits offered.

He expressed concern about the government not honouring the commitments made under the Umbrella Benefit Sharing Agreement and Licensed Based Benefit Sharing Agreement.