Plans to table amendment for undeveloped land to be forfeited

THE Department of Lands and Physical Planning will be tabling an amendment to the Land Act to allow for undeveloped land to be forfeited back to the State.
Department secretary Benjamin Samson told The National that the amendment would ensure that people who had titles to the land would be compelled to improve it.
“State has the right and mandate and can sub-divide your land and the one you have improved, you will keep title, the other one will be put out for public tender,” he said.
“Land is very limited, everyone is looking for land so you cannot keep that land and try to hold it back and because the demand is so high, you want to sell it at a very high price.
“It’s unfair to other Papua new Guineans.”
Samson said the State Solicitors’ Office had given them the go-ahead for the amendment to the Land Act, but there were some matters that needed to be cleared.
“We just need to do some things that they raised and we will put it through to Parliament,” he said.
“We want to amend the Land Act so those who get the title of a land must develop it.
“Hopefully this year, we will do the amendment to the Land Act.”
Meanwhile, Samson said the department had urged all Government agencies and statutory organisations that had large portions of land to surrender their certificate authorising occupancy (CAO).
He said certain Government departments such as the police and agriculture and livestock, had large tracks of State land. “Government departments are not allowed to hold titles so they are only given CAO for the land.
“But I’m asking them to surrender that to us and to have titles over their land.
“When you have CAOs, people with greedy intentions just take the land away from the organisations,” Samson said.