Seven SABLs recommended for cancellation

By HELEN TARAWA
Seven special agriculture business leases (SABLs) have been recommended for cancellation by a special committee, Lands and Physical Planning Minister Justin Tkatchenko says.
Tkatchenko said the team of investigators had revealed in their report to him that these seven were from East and West New Britain provinces.
“I will be presenting a full report next week to Cabinet on 100 SABLS that have been investigated by this special committee over the last 12 months,” he said.
“Already, there have been at least six or seven SABLs cancelled.”
Last year, Tkatchenko reported that 50 SABL titles had been recommended for cancellation.
He said seven out of the 50 had already been issued notices for cancellation, and 43 were still being processed.
Tkatchenko said 34 SABL titles were cancelled after landowners surrendered them to the State.
Earlier on, he told Parliament that 30 per cent of SABL titles had been cancelled, and about 60 per cent were still in court.
Tkatchenko said it was an ongoing process.
“The issue here is we still have court cases that are hindering some of our investigations and concluding to the final process of SABL,” he said.
“There are some SABLs that are working and landowners were happy, while others are not working.”
Acting Secretary Oswald Tolopa said it was important to report the correct amount of land cancelled per hectare on SABLs.
He said it was estimated that five million hectares of land have been taken up by SABLs.