PNG landowners do not hinder to development

PNG landowners do not hinder to development

 

By Patrick Matbob

PMIZ protesters

Papua New Guinea landowners are not the problem in stopping development in the country, a researcher from the Melanesian Institute in Goroka has told the Land Symposium in Madang.

Dr Michael Rynkiewich said contrary to what we often read in the newspapers or hear on the television, the practice of blaming landowners is simplistic and directs attention away from the real problems.

He said part of the problem is that developers have not wanted to deal with the complexity of the systems.

“Developers prefer a quick fix to the work that it takes to create and sustain a good relationship with landowners. In fact, historically, developers have not wanted a relationship with the landowners; they have only wanted the land.”

Dr Rynkiewich said it is not true that traditional systems are incompatible with development.

“Some nationals argue that they are compatible if we just work at it,” he said.

“The problem seems to be the assumption that development means becoming like the west, or at least what people imagine the west to be like. Perhaps PNG is chasing a mirage.”

He explained that the western system of land ownership and development was much more complex and cumbersome than the Melanesian system.

“There is no such thing as individual ownership of all the rights in land in the west.”

Therefore, he said the calls to replace the customary system are misplaced.

“The issue is security of tenure for development, not ownership.”

He said in fact Papua New Guineans have been quite right to be suspicious of such calls. Historically, colonizers have used land registration as a means of individualising land ownership and then wresting the land away from the owner.

He said even if Papua New Guinea finds a way to write customary tenure into law, the result would be disastrous.

He gave an example of his research in the Marshall Islands on Arno Atoll where the codification of the matrilineal laws of land tenure and succession to chieftainship had eliminated the flexibility that was in the system.

“People are agents of their own destiny. There are always alternative narratives and alternative customs that can be followed to reach a desired end. But if a custom is codified, there is no alternative but to accept the wrong man as a chief or the accumulation of too much land in one person’s hands. It would be wise neither to replace the Melanesian systems of land tenure, nor codify them in law,” Dr Rynkiewich said.

He said, it is reasonable for developers to expect that after all the negotiations, they will have security of tenure on the land.

However, he said, the problem is mainly to do with governance that is affecting the developers’ need to attain security of tenure on the land.

“Papua New Guinea has experienced a centralization of power followed by neglect and non-performance. From Bougainville to Kutubu, the state has been unable to organize, unable to regulate, and unable to sustain land and resource agreements. That is, the state has been unable to be a reputable broker between landowner and developer,” he said.

He pointed out that the problem was not bad reports by experts, nor bad laws.

He said that there are competent people in land offices around the country, who are hampered in their work by lack of funding, changes of government, regular shifts in policy and follow the rapid succession of ministers, and the interference of Members of Parliament and developers for the various provinces and regions.

Inability to organise and regulate land groups has also permitted the rise of some corrupt leaders of Incorporated Landowner Groups (ILGs) who have been able to receive compensation and royalties and not distribute them among the members.

“Calls for landowners to work with each other fall on deaf ears when the government and courts can not cooperate.  Sometimes the problem is funding of officials, sometimes it is the actions of officials that is the problem.”

“It is governance, not laws and not the landowners, that is the primary problem,” Dr Rynkiewich said.