THE local land mediators who are the key people in handling land disputes arousal between disputing parties in the process of obtaining a voluntary customary land registration (VCLR system) title needs proper funding to fully commit to their work.
Magistrate Clivson Philip from the Magisterial Services outlined this following a research report presented on Thursday by the PNGNRI highlighting some of the strategies that needed to address the challenges in the customary land administration, governance and dispute resolution in Papua New Guinea.
Magistrate Clivson said that there is no need to change the laws, all that is needed is by writing job description for the land mediators.
“Land mediators have not had a job description since 1975.
“Under the Land Dispute Settlement Act (1975), it states that in a local Land Court, there are two mediators and a qualified judicial officer who is the magistrate.
“The process requires the District Administration to fund allowances for two land mediators through its DSIP funds.
“If the DSIP funds are not made available, the process will not start.
“Respective bodies within Province are not giving priority and they think that the Department of Justice and Attorney General will fund the allowances for Land mediators in most cases.
“There is finger pointing between the District Administration and the Attorney General most specifically the village court land mediation secretariat,” Mr Clivson said.
He said that most of the long serving land mediators have passed on and the few that remain have lost track of their gazetted duties.
“Some mediators are paid allowances by the people who have disputes. If you do not pay the allowances for the mediators, you do not get your land resolved.
“A lot of people right now are forced to pay local land mediators from a gazetted land mediations to another deserted land mediation area which they are not supposed to, and that is disputed in its own without jurisdiction.
“Because the system is not making allowances available, People with disputes are using cash to get mediators to hear their dispute.
“We need to break that barrier and we need to recruit those local land mediators back to their gazetted mediation area,” he said.