Papua New Guinea government has no directions for long term landowner issues.

OP/ED

A young cocoa grower in Morobe stopped the Chief Secretary, Manasupe Zurenuoc, not too long ago at the Lae Hotel International for a five-minute door-stop lecture.

The farmer, whose name we do not know, wanted to know why the government was paying MoA, UBSA, LBBSA, BDG and a host of other “free” money when the first gas has yet to be sold.

He wanted to know if those like himself in the agriculture sector, which has sustained the economic lifeline of this country for longer than this country has been independent, could have access to similar free money.

He said people in the agricultural sector work hard from sun up to sun down for every morsel of grain or kilogram that is produced which takes many months before anything is paid to them. And, then, it is kina for kilogram and nothing more.

We remember this young man’s enquiry with some feeling as we see the mad charade that surrounds the liquefied natural gas like some bad smell that will not go away.

The latest was the mob action by some 300 angry landowners from the resource-rich Hela region who stormed the headquarters of the Finance and Treasury departments in Port Moresby demanding that government pay up outstanding business development grants.

The landowners blocked the main entrance into the building at around 2pm and held three senior officers from the Department of Petroleum and Energy (DPE) who came out of a meeting from the building as hostage for almost half an hour before releasing them when police intervened.

Police had to fire several warning shots into the air to disperse the mob but the mob refused to move and still stood blocking the road telling the police to shoot all of them if they wanted to.

Good invitation, which the police turned down.

We have seen the same kind of behaviour pervade right through the Christmas and New Year period at the same site.

We have seen early works forcefully stopped on the LNG project in the Southern Highlands and at Porebada on the outskirts of Port Moresby. The perpetrators are again landowners from respective sites who are demanding money.

And it is not because money is not being given to them. It is flowing out of the national coffers like water out of a dish with a dozen holes at the bottom.

Some K30 million was used or distributed in cash to landowners during the umbrella benefits sharing agreement talks in Kokopo while K180 million in outstanding MoA funds “disappeared” into the hands of “landowners” when MoA funds are supposed to be channelled to infrastructure projects.

Last December, K89 million out of K120 million in business development grants were paid out by a government under threats and duress perpetrated by the same bunch who charged Vulupindi Haus yesterday.

On Wednesday, we heard that another K115 million is yet to be paid to landowners; it having been promised the landowners by ministers of state.

The money has not been paid out yet only because different landowning groups, real or fake, are fighting for the money.

None of the people involved have lifted a pebble for the money they are now willing to get shot over.

They have done no work for it.

They happen to occupy, by the grace of God, in a part of PNG which is land floating on a sea of oil and gas. They “own” the land above the oil and gas which are “owned” by the state only because they happen to occupy the land. They neither created the land nor the resources. They are just plain lucky as are all the other resource owners of this country.

They ought to be in their respective churches thanking God for placing them in those areas in the first place, not arrogantly and greedily fighting government for what is plain blind luck.

It would be bad enough if these actions were those of the landowners alone.

Unfortunately, it is not. It is worse because the people have been encouraged, in fact emboldened, to move down this path by the leaders – mainly ministers of state.

Ministers, acting well beyond their authority, have been issuing letters of credit to landowners promising them tens of millions of kina. That is what landowners are today complaining of – ministerial commitments.