The decision by the Chairman of the Panguna Landowners Chairman, Lawrence Daveona to temporarily stop the conduct of the ten-days consultative meetings in and around the mine affected areas has turned sour resulting in a complete withdrawal of personals engaged in the exercise to retreat and allow a negotiation team to quickly negotiate the next course of action.
The consultative meetings were to gauge the views of landowners in their individual communities on what they want the ABG government to do for them.
This was after many people requested that previous meetings did not get the views of communities and were talking to leaders who were not raising the issues being felt by the people affected.
The Panguna Landowners leaders wanted all funds to be channeled through them as they had being mandated by the ABG.
But when the Landowners engaged the people looking after the Morgan Junction with stories that the team was dishing out Millions of cash to the landowners, Ex combatants called on the team to immediately stop the consultations and meet with them.
They also wanted to know why the ABG had not informed them of such funds being used and why they were only funding the landowners.
The committee will have to deal with these rumors before they can continue with the further consultations.
New Dawn