Landowners not happy with treatment by govt

By BRADLEY MARIORI
LANDOWNERS of Hobu in the Nabak local level government area of Nawaeb, Morobe, are not happy with the way their government is treating them on their own land.
Spokesperson and customary land chairman Jackson Erick said they were in need of services but their district authorities were not cooperating and working with the landowners.
“The services such as education and schools which were here before are okay,” he said.
“We are concerned about the water supply and road projects and are on land which are still in dispute.
“Our ward councillor told us the projects should go ahead and the disputes could be settled later but how can that be when the land is still in dispute?
“We want the district kiap, Nabak manager, Nawaeb administrator and the MP to come and sit with us and get our views before delivering these services, but this never happened.
“These are services but there will be problems if the landowners are not consulted.”
Erick said there should be an agreement between the government and the landowners so those services would flow in.
He said the projects were off the ground with their gardens and other crops destroyed without any payment and they were left to spectate without any payment.
Nawaeb administrator James Neapukali said the road was an upgrade of the existing road and the water supply was taken from their old water source.
He said if they had issues, they should take it up with the LLG manager and “if he cannot handle it, he will let us know to help”.
“We don’t expect any issues with the two projects but if it passes through their gardens or crops such as cocoa, coffee, etc, they should request us to go down and solve it with them,” he said.
Neapukali said for the water supply project, they made a provincial infrastructure programme submission and received K500,000 with a DDA counter-funding of K200,000.