NHC issue

I MAKE reference to an article ‘NHC warns of fake titles’ in The National on Thursday, May10, attributed to National Housing Corporation acting-manager Lae Mathew Limu.
The article appears to be mainly focusing on the Salamander houses and flats issues where a number of leases/titles had been issued to the current occupying tenants.
Unfortunately the good NHC manager had not been in Lae since the 1980s and early 2000s to know and appreciate the outstanding housing ownership issues that had been facing the Salamander occupying tenants for so long.
A number of articles on these issues had already been clearly highlighted in the two newspapers.
What more is there to be clarified for the NHC to take necessary actions?
NHC has totally failed to implement the various NEC decisions and directives so as to allow for the current occupying tenants’ rights to owning those properties under the Government housing ownership schemes.
For the information of NHC acting manager, the properties within Salamander are owned by the State.
NHC does not even have legal titles in the form of State leases to these properties and as rightfully alluded to, is only managing the properties.
Some clarifications need commenting on how the so-called fake titles had been granted to the current occupying tenants.
These true titles were granted under normal land board land allocation process managed by the Department of Lands and Physical Planning, and were never done through any fraudulent means as claimed by the NHC acting manager.
Why didn’t the NHC present itself when the land board was discussing the title grants applications?
The whole land board land allocation process was published in the National Gazette for a period of time, and obviously the NHC would have made its objections then, so why question the legal grants now?
NHC has done virtually nothing to ensure that the current occupying tenants were given opportunities to buy off the houses from the start till to date (1980s till now, 2018).
Did NHC subdivide and survey the Salamander suburb properties?
Where were they when we, the tenants here, were crying out to their officers for proper sub-divi-sion and survey to be made within Salamander?
The Salamander community is indeed grateful and indebted to the former Morobe provincial administrator, the late Ainea Sengero, who was at the forefront in ensuring that the NEC policy decisions and directives were implemented.
He duly authorised the necessary funding for the sub-division and survey for the Salamander suburb.
The NHC had virtually ignored the tenant’s rights to own these properties by its continued blatant ignorance in not addressing the plight of the occupying tenants here. It is for forgoing reasons that the Morobe provincial administration, decided to proceed with the lands’ board land allocation process to make these leasehold grants to the occupying tenants.
Lastly, for the benefit of the NHC acting-manager, the leases or legal titles granted to the ten-ants herein are indeafisable titles.
Only the National Court can decide upon their legality and no-one else can claim them as fake titles, like NHC acting-manager’s comments.
The above clarifications are not “fake news”, but the facts surrounding your corporation’s total ignorance and lack of foresight in addressing the Salamander houses and flats issues.
I would kindly ask the acting NHC manager to come over and discuss the issues with the Salamander tenants.

Lawrence Billy
Hospital Hill
Lae