House prices still remain out of reach for most Port Moresby residents, according to a report by Papua New Guinea’s National Research Institute. It says that changing the approach to customary land has become necessary because state land is running out.

Sales of property in Port Moresby. Source: NRI

‘Although house sales and rent prices have decreased, they are still beyond the reach of most Port Moresby residents because the decrease is not proportional to the increase during the construction phase of the PNG LNG project,’ according to the report, which was authored by Eugene Ezebilo, Program Leader of the Property Development Program at the National Research Institute (NRI).

‘Currently, many houses are vacant in the historical medium-income areas and the Central Business District (CBD). Most residents cannot afford to buy or rent houses there and have moved to low-income areas such as Gerehu, which is now booming in real estate activities.’

‘With state land almost exhausted, the attention has now shifted to customary land.’

Ezebilo argues that there should be more effort by the government to unlock secure customary land for development.

‘Access to customary land has been a long-standing issue in PNG and requires urgent attention. With state land almost exhausted, the attention has now shifted to customary land.’

Legislative changes?

The NRI’s Eugene Ezebilo. Source: NRI

Ezebilo contends that a potential strategy to access secure customary land could be to invoke Section 10 of the PNG Land Act 1996.

‘This involves landowners leasing their land to the state through [an] urban development lease (UDL), which will be processed by the Department of Lands and Physical Planning (DLPP) and without advertising the UDL, the landowners are issued customary land titles.

‘Use of customary land is a fraught issue in PNG.’

‘It is a “win-win” situation for the landowner, investor and the state in the development of customary land.’

Making effective legislative changes, however, will not be easy, according to Stephen Massa, Managing Partner of Dentons’ Port Moresby office.

‘Use of customary land is a fraught issue in PNG—as it is in other developing countries—and while there may be legal ways of putting customary land to use, issues almost inevitably arise in the practical implementation of those legal provisions.’

Identification

One of those difficulties may be accurately identifying who the rightful landowners are. Colin Filer, Associate Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy, writing in Devpolicyblog, cites a Supreme Court decision that points to a persistent difficulty.

‘The nub of the judicial argument was that the government and developers had persistently failed in their duty to establish the identity of the true landowners, organise them into incorporated land groups (ILGs), and then make agreements with these legal entities that would constitute evidence of free, prior and informed consent, and hence grant the developers a social licence to operate.

‘PNG’s judges do not even recognise the possibility that anthropologists, or other social scientists, might produce evidence relevant to the resolution of disputes about the identity of the “true landowners” of any piece of customary land.

Infrastructure

The NRI report argues that, if PNG is to promote access to affordable house sales and rentals during and after major development projects such as the PNG LNG project, there is a need to conduct ‘a thorough socio-economic impact assessment’ beforehand.

‘More houses and trunk infrastructure must be built, especially in low-income areas.’