PNG’s Land reform should embrace informal economy

By Busa Jeremiah Wenogo

The rapid rural to urban migration into major cities and urban centres in PNG has seen an increase in informal economic activities as employment opportunities become scarce. This is evident in the outpouring of informal peddlers and mobile traders onto the streets and road side due to inadequate space in the formal markets. In the property market informal settlements are on an exponential rise and the average number of people in a household has dramatically increased.   

The inadequacy of the government to readily covert undeveloped land into useable land for housing purposes has created a housing crisis in Port Moresby. Likewise discarding the informal economy from urban development planning has created discord between the government and the informal economy participants that has given rise to incivility and conflict in most centres. Customary and undeveloped State Land are being occupied by desperate city dwellers at an unbelievable pace leaving in its wake the urban development planners who have to play a game of “catch up”. Customary landowners long being victim of unscrupulous land dealings involving the State are not easily swayed by the State’s plea to release land for formal development. The Taurama Urban Development Pilot project in Port Moresby which was supposed to have been the blueprint for land reform in PNG is now in tatters. Land that were surveyed and gazetted for formal development in this part of Port Moresby have now been sold out to individuals through private dealings involving local landowners and corrupt government officials.  

Rampant corruption at the highest level will ensure that rental rates and vacancies are kept tight to maintain a high rate of return for landlords and property owners. While the government is to be commended for introducing an affordable housing scheme it is important that houses that are constructed under this scheme are built to meet the highest quality and standards. This is important in light of the loan repayment being spread over a maximum period of 40 years.  Apart from this the State does not have an up to date National Housing Policy to look at providing housing to its citizens nor does it have the capacity to regulate the rental and housing market. Such policy would signal real commitment to ensuring that access to affordable housing is a priority of the government. National Housing Corporation who is supposed to be the agency responsible for putting together such a policy is still struggling to get its house in order. In the absence of such key instrument there is no guarantee that future governments will continue with the current initiatives introduced by this government.

In addition to the above the government does not have a policy to deal with the Informal squatter settlement that are popping up uncontrollably at all corners of the cities and urban centers throughout the country. Similar to the failed notion that the formal sector would outgrow and subsequently subsumed the informal economy (informal sector); the idea that informal squatter settlement would be eventually overtaken by formal development has proven to be a failure in PNG and most developing countries. Instead successive PNG Governments weary of not committing “political suicide” have been finding the going tough in trying to rectify the settlement issue without jeopardizing their political base. The NCDC/UNHABITAT resettlement strategy to address settlement issues in Port Moresby could be a testament to this reality. However, NCDC alone cannot address the issue; it needs Department of Lands and the National Housing Corporation plus utility providers like EDA RANU and PNG POWER to come on board.

It is hoped that government inaction over the years to address these critical development issues are not a result of “conflict of interest” at the political level. Certainly most PNG politicians as documented in the media do have interests in properties both here and abroad. The current exorbitant rental rates provides an opportunity to garner attractive profits that any attempt to break this “monopoly” will not be easy.  

The current Physical Planning and Buildings law with its rigid standards are too high for most struggling Papua New Guineans to cope up with. This is one of the main reasons why the Informal Sector Development & Control Act 2004 in its wisdom deliberately excluded its applicability. The fear was that imposing these high standards would be detrimental to the growth of the informal economy. Furthermore, municipal authorities such as NCDC armed with zoning rights/powers have not factored informal economy into its planning. This is where introducing a new zoning category for informal economy is important to ensure that informal economic activities are not unnecessarily penalized by development. Its absence at present is forcing municipal authorities like NCDC to take a band-aid approach to addressing its issues. It is also important that the government consider cities with all its infrastructure as “national asset” to protect it from unnecessary abuse and damage from the public and local landowners. There are cities in the country that have fallen victim to vandalism from the public and the local landowners which have caused the government so much money to re-developed. Cities are meant to be a breeding ground for people of all walks of life; a melting pot where its social and economic lifeline is the diversity of people that make up its citizenship. Thus there is a great need for us to define the term “city” in our contexts so that we work towards a uniform approach to promoting development in our country. A clear understanding of what we mean by city will enable the government to better utilise its limited resources to build appropriate infrastructure.