BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
Opposition Leader Mathew Wale said immediate action is needed to suspend KS Logging Company’s licence and take punitive measures against it.
Wale was responding in parliament yesterday to the question titled ‘Logging on Waimapuru national secondary school land’.
The question was put forward by MP for Temotu Nende and read as ‘It has come to attention that part of the school belonging to Waimapuru National Secondary School is currently being used for logging’.
Updating the house, Minister for Education, Tozen Leokana said his ministry was recently made aware of the allegation.
He said that a meeting was convened on September 22 this year between the provincial executive and the Waimapuru National Secondary School management to deliberate on the matter.
“The area of the alleged encroachment is believed to be within the Lot 2 of the LR817, title held by the Commission of Lands. Lot 1 is under the jurisdiction of the Temotu Nende and Makira premiers. A survey conducted confirmed evidence of encroachment. One of the key resolutions from the meeting between the school management is the establishment of a taskforce chaired by the deputy provincial secretary for Makira and Ulawa province to address the matter,” he said.
He said his ministry will continue to work closely with the Makira and Ulawa education provider and the principal of Waimapuru Secondary School to monitor the progress to provide further updates on this particular matter.
Minister for Forestry Makario Tagini said there are two options available for an encroachment in a registered land under the Commissioner of Lands.
“One, go to the court for restrain orders. That, will take a little bit of time, the other option is to write to the Commissioner of Forest for issuing a suspension. It would be easy to identify them because there are boundaries of the registered land. If there is evidence to show that there’s encroachment, the Commissioner should straight away assume suspension of the licence,” Tagini said.
Wale said that setting up the task force will take time and called on the Minister or Permanent Secretary (PS) to write to the Commissioner of Forest to suspend the license.
“We should not encourage this kind of nonsense. Provincial PS and the task force must look at damages to compensate to the school for the log they already harvested and the damage they caused as well as the trespass.
“I’m just concerned that we come up with task force, and by the time you apply these processes, every log already taken, the company pull out, similar to the 33 shipments in Rennell. So, immediate action is required. And the Commissioner needs to act this week. Not next week, but this week to suspend the license and take some punitive measures,” said Wale.
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