Urban centres lacking state land for development, says official

By KELVIN JOE
STATE land is scarce in urban centres including Port Moresby and Lae for development projects because most of it is leased to companies and occupied by squatters, an official says.
Lands and Physical Planning secretary Benjamin Samson said cities and towns needed state land for development purposes.
“State land is scare in urban centres. There is no more land available for urbanisation as people migrate from rural areas to towns and cities,” he said.
“We must stop leasing state land to private companies and make it available for ordinary people and development.”
“We cannot plan properly because everything cannot be squeezed together into one space.”
Samson said this following the national housing and urbanisation meeting between the Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council, National Housing Corporation, Lands Department, Personal Management Department, National Capital District (NCDC), National Research Institute, Independent Consumer and Competition Commission and other government and non-governmental agencies in Port Moresby to address land and housing issues in urban centres.
He said the state would need more land to cater for the growing population in urban areas.
He said the Government should continue to invest and improve basic services at the community level to improve people’s lives.
“Urbanisation must be brought to rural areas to stop people from migrating to towns and cities,” he said.
But urbanisation programmes are hindered because of the shortage of state land. NCDC manager, strategic planning, Kemo Pepena-Guise said according to the city physical planning and development map, state land available in NCD needed to be identified and developed.
“Some people especially illegal settlers have been occupying land illegally. They don’t have the capacity and capability to develop it but continue to occupy those state land,” she said.