Transcript
STANLEY MAMU: The government is referring to the clan vetting. Government sent a representative headed by the judge, Justice Ambeng Kandakasi, to carry out that clan vetting. They find clan members and tribes that are related to that LNG Project areas. That's not finished. It's taken about three years now. But people on the ground, they are saying that they don't want this sort of clan vetting headed by Justice Kandakasi. They want the Petroleum department to carry out that clan vetting.
JOHNNY BLADES: They're pretty upset about this aren't they, these landowners. They're blocked access to the Hides conditioning plant, but they're threatening to do more obstruction of the whole project, somehow?
SM: Exactly. I just rang the person on the ground who is heading that strike. He told me that today is the last day. Tomorrow, they will get a response from the government and if the government cannot satisfy their petition, they will forcefully go inside and close down welheads B, C and D... it's the well-tap that supplies the gas.
JB: There were already concerns about this type of thing, before the project got on its feet. People worried that it had to be done properly (in terms of landowner consent), but did you see these problems coming up through the years?
SM: This sort of closure, we've never experienced that from the beginning until now. If people go ahead and close the gas tap, I think this will be the first of its kind, and I don't know what the government will be doing about that. But most of the years, well they've come with peaceful protests and sometimes close the gate and these things. but when the government says we'll give it (the money) tomorrow, next year, next month or whatever, they (landowners) open it up and then say for some months when the government doesn't fulfil its promises, people come up with anger, then do all these things. But closing the tap, what they have proposed, will be the first of its kind.
