More than sixty containers of tubi round logs have been held again by customs after a High Court injunction last month.
The containers belong to Southern Pacific Woods Trading Company (SPWTC).
The same company the commissioner of forests order a seizure of its fifty containers in late July and put an order of sale since the company has been illegally exporting under an expired licence.
Despite controversies regarding the legality of their export, the company continue to export tubi.
It was discovered the company has made more than five shipments under an expired licence over the past nine months.
Documents revealed the company SPWTC had exported 49 containers on 11/12/13, 46 containers on 4/01/14, 30 containers on 29/01/14, 19 containers on 14/07/14 and three other unconfirmed shipments.
All these containers were exported under cancelled licence A201334.
But after landowners raised the alarm of the issue of expired licence A201334, SPWTC’s went and use another license in an unsuccessful attempt to export the last 50 tubi containers.
The company was then use licence A20756 issued on the 28th July 2014.
The license was owned by Holitoga Enterprise purposely for concession land at Kia where it was reported to have no tubi tree.
Interestingly this company managed to have 60 plus containers ready for shipment at the ports area within weeks after using the new license.
Comptroller of customs Nathan Kama has confirmed the containers are still held at the Point Cruz wharf awaiting any clearance from court.
Kama said they hold the containers since there was a court order to hold the containers.
“Unless these containers were cleared by court they will not be shipped,” Kama said.
The containers could fetch millions of dollars in total value and could earn 25 percent of these millions in duty for the government it was reported.
Landowners of San George who have applied for the High Court order on the containers believed the tubi logs were harvested on their land at San George in Isabel.
They claimed nowhere in Isabel could these logs be cut, since the new license number which SPWTC use was for a concession area in Kia where there is no Tubi tree.
Meanwhile the fate of the 60 plus containers will await the High Court ruling on the civil case currently before the court.
Early last month concerned land owner Nolan Jolo called on the commissioner of forest to seize the containers because they are “illegally harvested with no valid license to export”.
Mr Jolo claimed that the Tubi logs were harvested from their tribal land and from his understanding, the company has no valid license to operate there.
He said the commissioner must seize the consignment and put an order for sale on it so that the government can benefit from its sale.
He further called on the director of environment not to grant any more permission to export Tubi, Xanthostemon species to South Pacific Woods Trading Company Limited (SPWTCL) using his powers under Section 18 of the Wild Life Protection and Management Act 1998 together with Regulation 9 sub regulation of the Wildlife and Protection and Management regulation 2008 and Cabinet Decision Extract Conclusion C 4[2014] 4 dated 13 February 2014.
Attempts to get the commissioner of forest and the director of environment for comments last week was unsuccessful.
By DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
