Madang provincial administration steps in to stop eviction of settlers

MOVES to evict settlers living near the Lae Builders Company (LBC) facilities in Madang yesterday was stopped by the provincial administration.
Settlers, mostly Sepiks near Wagol River, were issued an eviction notice on June 25 to vacate the land within a month, but they stayed on.
Another four weeks passed so the developer of the land, JV PNG Investment, took a bulldozer in to start the eviction process.
Madang acting provincial administrator John Bivi said the administration stopped police from continuing the eviction on humanitarian grounds.
Bivi had instructed acting provincial legal officer Ethel Valakvi to issue a stop-work notice for dialogue to take place.
More than 200 people live in the settlement.
JV PNG Investment general manager Graham Hayes said they had taken over the old LBC facilities and wanted to extend it to store gravel and other material for road construction work in town.
Hayes said they followed the proper procedures to secure the title for the land.
He said the settlers had been throwing stones at the company building roof at weekends.
“In one incident they set fire to our building and two units were destroyed,” Hayes said.
It is understood that the settlers were first evicted in 2003 during Madang’s biggest settlement eviction exercise but people returned and rebuilt their houses because the land remained undeveloped.
The settlers took the government to court and were awarded damages. Some received more than K4000 last month.
Madang Mayor Joe Yama said the land was reserved, which by law belonged to the Madang Urban local level government.
“I am not aware of this eviction exercise and don’t know how the title was taken,” Yama said.
Madang police commander Ben Neneo could not be reached for comment.