Suspect Lae land deal

By GABRIEL LAHOC
THE East Taraka community is suspicious of another alleged illegal land deal involving officers from the Morobe lands division after seeing growing interest in the land where the local elementary school is.
Residents of East Taraka have reported sighting “potential buyers” inspecting the land at the back of the suburb towards the Bumbu River.
The people there recently held a meeting to voice concerns at the likelihood of another illegal land deal despite the general understanding that the piece of state land was to be developed by the division of education.
The residents called on the Morobe provincial government, the divisions of lands and physical planning and education to clear the air on the matter.
They said they did not want to see any more pieces of land being sold to “people with money”.
They said, as custodians of the land since the establishment of the suburb decades ago, they should not be left in the dark over any development of the land.
The Taraka Elementary School has two half-built classrooms, which caters for the growing number of school-aged children who would normally walk three to four kilometres to attend  schools in West Taraka, Tent City and Unitech.
They complained that residential areas were being converted into bases for businesses.
A resident of 20 years called on the Morobe administration to look into the sale of National Housing Commission homes to entrepreneurs and PMV operators who had turned residential areas into workshops and alcohol outlets and other businesses.