Legal aspects of compulsory acquisition of land in Papua New Guinea

The power of compulsory acquisition has always been an important aspect in the acquisition of land for public purposes in the history of PNG. The Power, however, was abused during the colonial era by virtue of the fact that too many occuppied lands were acquired by the Colonial Administration. These acquisitions led first, to shortage of land in many parts of the country and second, domination of Papua New Guinea's economy by foreigners, especially plantation economy.The successive post - Independence Governments of PNG have adopted an overall policy to redress the situation by acquiring foreign owned lands and redistributing them to nationals for subsistence farming or economic development so that they may participate in the economic development of the country. This work examines the law relating to compulsory acquisition of land in PNG. In particular it examines the policies, laws and practices aimed at compulsory acquisition. of land and their effects on the landowners. The work also proposes reforms to the laws relating to compulsory acquisition of land in PNG. The thesis proposes several reforms to the law relating to compulsory acquisition of land in th,e country. 1. That the power of compulsory acquisition in PNG continue as it is essential to acquire lands the Government needs for development purposes in the interest of the greater national community. However, an amendment to the provisions of the Land Act is necessary to introduce a system of H compulsory lease \ to replace the current system of compulsory acquisition. 2. That the payments of compensation to the dispossessed citizen owner especially an automatic citizen should be over and above the market value of the land compulsorily acquired to reflect the extra market values or non - economic values that Papua New Guineans often attached to their land. However the situation regarding payments of compensation to remedy grievances caused by colonial land acquisitions requires urgent review as there appears to be no proper guidelines for such payments and it has proved to be unnecessarily costly to the nation. That the payment of compensation to the dispossessed non - citizen owner should be less thanthe concept of the market value of the land. The Government should pay the dispossessed non - citizen landowner compensation based on what it considers just. 3. The imposition of two months time - limit under the present Land Act within which landowners are required to respond to a notice to treat is unrealistic and should be extended to six months as most of the customary landowners are still in the remote rural areas with poor communication and transportation systems. However provisions be inserted in the Land Act to establish a minimum time - limit within which the Government must complete the compuslory acquisition once a notice to treat has been issued. The absence of such a time - limit could cause injustice to the landowners as months or years may elapse before the procedure for the acquisition is effected."