NGO wary of empty promises on PNG land leases

Transcript

An NGO which has been calling for the scrapping of controversial land leases in Papua New Guinea says the prime minister needs to do more than just make promises he'll get rid of them.

A commission of inquiry last year found more than 90% of Special Agricultural Business Leases were illegally obtained from customary landowners.

The prime minister Peter O'Neill has announced that those SABLs will be cancelled and provisions in the Land Act which allowed for SABLs to be granted, abolished.

But Effrey Dademo from the NGO Act Now told Bridget Tunnicliffe they've heard it before.

EFFREY DADEMO: We've actually been asking it for a long time. Next Tuesday is the first anniversary of when the final report was actually presented to the PNG prime minister and since then we've had three such promises made already. This is like the fourth one so we're not holding our breath just yet. We're calling on the prime minister to actually implement his promises and not just make those promises.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: Does Mr O'Neill's announcement that they will cancel those SABLs obtained illegally, does it go far enough? Do you want to see a complete abolition of the Act which allows for SABLs to be granted?

ED: It's a step in the right direction and we do welcome it except that it doesn't go quite far enough yet because those leases have to be canvassed. He has not said anything about the illegal logging that is going on under the forest clearance authorities that were issued for projects under those SABLs to be implemented. Those particular ones have not been cancelled, he has not said anything about the illegal logging that's going on. So yeah we need to see some physical evidence before we say 'okay they're doing something' otherwise it's just a political statement.

BT: Are you surprised about the timing of this announcement given that Mr O'Neill is the subject of corruption allegations himself this week?

ED: Yeah obviously to an ordinary person it would look suspicious but for those of us who have been in the fight for this long asking for those SABLs to be cancelled, well we're looking at it from both sides, 'is it a political thing or is he genuinely talking about cancelling it?' If he's genuine well go one step further because we have those corrupt officials who were implicated in the report still sitting and getting paid at the Lands Department. How do you deal with those people? Are those people going to be prosecuted? What's going to happen to them? The whole Lands Department needs to be reformed, what are the government plans in relation to those and what about the SABL process? He said they're going to mend the laws to scrap the SABL process, well good, but the fact is there are corrupt officials sitting in there facilitating not just SABL deals but deals in relation to land in general. What is the government going to do about those people?