More than 400 individual claims of Watut river communities along Watut river have been left out as villages decided not to sign the Statutory Declaration and making Sworn Statements that were being bulldozed by Hidden Valley Joint Venture (HVJV) Community liaison officers. This has cause them to miss out in the current Newcrest and Harmony HVJV garden compensation payment. The community have demanded an explanation of these two documents eversince however, HVJV offices have refused to explained this to them hence they strongly believe the documents might taken away their birth rights and jeopardies their future lawsuit.
Tiffany Nonggorr, a Lawyer engaged by the Bulolo District JDBPC to assist the Watut River Communities in their bid to sue Newcrest and Harmony for the Environmental Damage and Watut River Rehabilitation have last week informing the communities that the Newcrest and Harmony Lawyers have mention the statutory declaration and the sworn statement in as their defense file. This contradicts earlier comments made by the HVJV General Manage Mr David Wissink that the State Decs has nothing to do with the future legal claims and communities should sign them without having doubt.
The Union of Watut River Communities (UoWRC) have already written a latter to the Minister for Mining Hon John Pundari MP, Environment and Conservation Minister Hon Benny Allan and Managing Director for Mineral Resource Authority Mr Kepas Walli urging them to look into how HVJV has been doing in terms of Compensation and Environment and Mining Regulations Plan. The also demanded that these respictive Regulatory bodies should intervene instruct HVJV to rearrange the payments for those that have been missing out.
Bulolo MP Hon Sam Basil has also send an email to the Community Affairs Manager of HVJV Mr Stanley Komunt to revisit those outstanding payments and address them. He also suggest that in case were HVJV refuse to made payments in relation to the signing of the State Decs, than the HVJV should send copies of the valuation calculated as per the Valua General Rate so his District should pay these claims.
No comments:
Post a Comment