Province gives land as awards to retirees

A RETIRED agriculturalist from Manus who served as a public servant for more than 43 years received a land title from the East New Britain provincial administration on Tuesday under the agriculture lease arrangement.
Peter Luluai, a father and a granddad, was one of 16 people who received land titles under the agricultural land lease from the provincial lands and physical planning division.
The 16 recipients received the titles to four hectares of state land each, at Warongoi, in the Gazelle district.
According to the lands and physical planning advisor, Geoffery Leba, the recipients will be paying land lease rentals of K95 annually to the state.
They were urged to start developing the land after receiving the titles to the 64 hectares of land.
Leba said all their applications went through the provincial land board that has been in existence for the past two years.
He said the titles given to the 16 recipients are for a 99-year lease.
Deputy provincial administrator, Levi Mano, when addressing the occasion, said this was part of the provincial government’s exit plan for all long serving public servants.  He said this is to make sure that the public servants have a life after retiring.
Luluai thanked the provincial government on behalf of the 16 recipients.
“It gives us the chance to fall back on something after working for the government for a long period of time,” he said.

Luluai added that he plans to provide service to other farmers as an agriculturalist while developing the block of land he had received titled over.