Tenants query title holding

Story and picture
by ELLEN TIAMU
FORMER tenants of the National Housing Corporation property on Second Street, Top Town, Lae, are questioning how businessman John Bangkok acquired the title to the prime piece of State land.
The seven families who lived on the property were evicted last week when graders moved in and demolished their homes to make way for the new developer, Bangkok, who owns the road construction company, East West 1.
The families said there was no record of sale at the regional physical planning office in Lae and with the National
Housing Corporation.
But they admitted that it could have been arranged through the Port Moresby office.
The long-time public servants who have lived there for years said they should have been given the opportunity to bid for the land there under the corporation’s much talked-about home-ownership scheme.
“Many of us are senior public servants and right now we are not at work because we have to run around looking for places for our families to stay and/or move to,” a spokesperson said.
“We can’t go to the settlements as those are being bulldozed.”  
They said their children were being affected and that rental for the bulldozed houses was still being deducted from their
salaries.
The tenants said they would continue their own investigations into how the businessman entered the country and how he could acquire land without going through proper tender procedures.
They are working through their lawyers to get a court restraining order to stop further development until the matter is sorted out.
Attempts to get comments from the physical planning offices in Lae and Port Moresby and National Housing Corporation offices in Lae and Port Moresby failed.
Bangkok could not be reached on his mobile as he is overseas.