Reduce lease period to 45 years

THIS is in reference to an article that generated a lot of public backlash on The National about the court-ordered eviction of Bushwara settlers in Port Moresby.
In PNG, 95 percent of the land is customary while five per cent is state land.
Most of the land in urban areas are state land.
For development purposes, the state has leased most of its land to statutory bodies and business houses for 99 years.
Due to financial constraints, most of the leased lands remain undeveloped.
While taking advantages of this, settlers occupy the land without identifying the legal owners.
It is sad when settlers have established their lives in urban areas and call it their home then the owner pops up from nowhere and issue eviction notices.
Permanent houses and businesses worth millions of kinas are easily lost.
Worse still, the settlers are not compensated.
Although the owners have the right to claim their lands, they should issue notice of ownership of their lands before settlers start building anything permanent on their lands.
Were they sleeping when their land was developed by settlers?
The settlers in Bushwara are living in anxiety after they were told to evict the land.
In the past, in a similar scenario at Erima, a Western Highlands man spent all his resources to erect five residential units in the middle of the current roundabout and it was demolished.
He defied the eviction notice.
His family was sleeping in the night and at 2am a police unit ensured the family allowed the excavator to demolish.
The father got a heart attack and passed away leaving his family in sorrow. It would be better for the state to reduce the lease period from 99 to 45 years.
The law to grant 99 years was passed when most Papua New Guineans were not businessmen.
Now when local businesses are going global and land is becoming a scarce resource, the state needs to reconsider that law.
Leaseholders should meet the cost of houses before carrying out demolition exercises for failing to inform beforehand.

Jeffsatu, Lypin Lokait
POM