HIGHLANDS LANDOWNERS are threatening to shut down the ExxonMobil Liquefied Natural Gas project if the PNG government does not take action on a long list of grievances.

Tensions, rising for some time over government delays, have come to a head with the death of Tuguba Chief Himuni Homoko, whose clan members say died too young fighting for justice for his people.

The landowners have put a petition to government and they say they want action immediately.

The LNG project is of critical importance to Papua New Guinea - at 15 billion dollars it is by far the biggest investment ever and if all goes according to plan it is expected to double the country's GDP.

The main landowner agreement - the Kokopo agreement signed in May 2009 - coordinated by the PNG government took thousands of participants six weeks to negotiate.

But it is rejected by 26 Tuguba clans from the Hela region in the PNG highlands, whose chief was Himuni Homoko.

“This agreement that they say was signed in Kokopo was cooked up in Port Moresby like a ready made kit house,” says their spokesman, former MP Sir Alfred Kaiabe. “[It was] then forced down the reluctant throats of people to sign. We never read the contents, there was no consensus and that is a fundamental principle of contract law.

But it is not just the Tuguba who say their legitimate claims are being ignored - Chief Tara Liyabe from Angore is the head of 26 clans. He says his people are angry about the social mapping of the LNG project, delays by the government in the payment of seed capital and the make up of the Kokopo agreement.

“If the government doesn't come into my booth and stay with me and listen to my grievance, then, there will be another Bougainvill,” he says. “Why I say this is because gas is in my land, it is on the customary land and if the government still persisting on againsting me, and interfering in the project all the time, then the project will come to a halt. We will stop the project.”

Source: Radio Australia