THE National Research Institute of Papua New Guinea (PNGNRI) in its recent spotlight report has highlighted the need for effectiveness in the Voluntary Customary Land Registration (VCLR) System that is currently in place in the country.
The report contributes to the debates surrounding how to best avail customary land in the formal land market in Papua New Guinea so that landowners and the State can benefit from transactions on customary land.
Since 2005, landowners in PNG have been encouraged to register their land through the VCRL system; however, it is identified through the report that the system is not user friendly and not well understood by local landowners.
Speaking during the presentation, Logea Nao who is a Sustainable Land Development Researcher and the author of the report gave an insight of the two phases surrounding the VCRL system and the necessary processes from the two phases.
These VCRL phase one include the incorporation of a land group (ILGs) and the second phase include the registration of customary land.
Ms Nao in her report explained how different processes within these two phases are misunderstood or are not correctly consulted which resulted in many hiccups and difficulty when trying to obtained a VCLR title.
Members of the of public as well as statutory divisions within the Land & Physical Planning Department who were also present to witness the presentation have raised concerns and experiences on the realities faced by landowners when following the VCLR process of formally registering and obtaining a land title.
One of the main issues raised was on how the ILG phase within the VCLR system has been administered, which in most cases have seen two different groups of people claiming same properties by two different ILGs which one then progresses to claim a VCLR title on the property list.
“From once an ILG establish and own its properties, technically customary law does not apply on these properties anymore and that is the confusion because those disputes then bleed into the VCLR process. So when there’s newspaper notices out for the granting of VCLR , we then have the various landowners, legitimate and illegitimate come out and frustrate the process that should rather be straight forward ,” says a representative from the Motu- Koita Lands and Physical Planning Department.
He went on recommending that there is a need to create a dispute recognition mechanism for property listing, saying that the ILG Act doesn’t provide for who rightly has the property, and that directly affects the VCLR process.
The report recommends the need to improve the effectiveness of VCRL: improve customary land administration; decentralize the process to provinces and districts; and government consider subsidizing surveying fees.
Ms Nao also recommends that to further improve the process, the foremost step to take is to review the VCRL system in close consultation with the users of the system, as called for by more participants of the 2019 National Land Summit.
The report also highlighted the need for public awareness on the requirements and processes, availability of the services for administering the system in provinces and rural areas, and public perception about the administration of State leases for further effectiveness in the VCRL system in PNG.
Very much interested.
ILG must establish before land registration.
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