Getting ready for Chinese money on the Okuk Highway
11 January 2013
TERRY SHELLEY
The Okuk Highlands Highway is a disaster. It features horrific road conditions and very unfriendly bystanders.
There has been a population explosion over the past 2-3 decades and, to many rural youths (and seniors, for that matter), the highway is their only chance of income, i.e., looting vehicles, pot-hole creation gangs and deliberate sabotage by redirecting streams to cause landslides and blockages.
Since the announcement by the national government of its intention to have a Chinese loan finance a K6 billion remake, there has been a mad rush to erect stalls, trade stores, fences, gardens etc in an effort to get paid compensation.
And, if it is anything like the Simbu buy-back, the people will get paid if they agree to share some of the proceeds with the government officers making the pay-out.
It is time the PNG government showed some backbone and regained ownership of the Okuk Highway. The entire road from Lae wharf to the LNG project area should be declared a disaster zone with special police powers given to mobile squads to bring it back under control.
A national advertising campaign should be launched to inform anyone who builds within the 40 metre corridor (i.e., 20 metres either side of the centre line) is trespassing on government property and will be charged.
The owners of illegal gardens and buildings should be given 30 days’ notice to be remove them or they will be destroyed without compensation.
It is rather ironic the national government can boast about its intention to vapourise K1 billion for the 2015 South Pacific Games where the only real winners from this will be the usual clique of Moresby insiders.
The sad state of the Okuk Highway and the added costs of looting and other crime is being paid for daily by the millions of highlanders who depend on the road as their only source of goods and access to market for their produce.
Yes, the highway needs an urgent makeover, however some thought should be given to the locals along its length to be included in the spin-offs.
This could be done by giving them minor maintenance contracts (wok-mak) and also security contracts.
The volume of traffic along the highway has probably increased by more than 100%, however the highlands mummas are still washing their kaukau, pikininis and second-hand clothes in the gutters as the million kina rigs roar past.
The highway is a problem far too great for an NGO or any other "do good" organisation. We need a SWAT Squad.
I agree!
Posted by: Ganjiki D Wayne | 14 January 2013 at 01:27 PM
Engage the PNG Defence Force Engineering battalion to reconstruct the highlands highway with specific instructions to clear the 40m corridor of the highway without any compensation.
Posted by: Manuel David | 14 January 2013 at 12:57 PM
And don't give the tired, lame old excuse "it's the Melanesian way".
I've seen this used to excuse corruption, abuse and mistreatment over generations.
It's time it stopped. It's time PNG men got over this and stood up for basic human rights and civic honesty.
Posted by: Peter Kranz | 13 January 2013 at 09:22 PM
I am tired of talking about this stupid highway.
Everything is in a mess.
Posted by: Bernard Yegiora | 13 January 2013 at 07:49 PM
People will try to continue to do what they have been allowed to get away with.
This has been allowed to escalate with greater and greater momentum by our succeeding governments since Independence. We are harvesting the results of our own incompetence.
High level corruption by our leaders is shouted from the hilltops. We know that our leaders are making out like bandits. The roadside villagers want their bit of the action.
Take strong action, throw some in jail; but ensure that they enjoy the company of some high level friends eating the same rice and tin fish.
No housing for public servants? Has everyone forgotten that a relatively enormous stock of housing was sold to themselves, for a song, by our previous leaders? Refurbished K80,000 housing sold for K10-11,000; worth over one mission today. Nice!
Many years ago a friend of mine, a highly competent public servant, was offered his four bedroom, two bathroom house on a very large fenced block in Boroko for K11,000.
With his large family it would be a big step for him. He also felt somewhat guilty that there would be no house available for his future replacement.
I said that it did not seem to worry the pollies and bigmen who organised this specifically for their own benefit; why should it worry him?
This is just another facet of the financial dismemberment of PNG. We have the relatively few feeding at the trough and PNG is staggering on.
This attempt by the masses is really too much; it is affecting our leaders' feeding frenzy.
This is not an excuse for the villagers, but is an attempt to put it into today's reality.
Posted by: Tony Flynn | 11 January 2013 at 03:56 PM
It's a shame! We, including me, complain a lot about non-delivery of services and next to nil improvement in our wretched lives and look what we do to hinder development or stop attempts by successive governments to help us.
All of us Highlanders should be ashamed of ourselves, especially the big-mouth attention seeking leaders and all educated ones, for failing to control our increasingly lazy fellow Highlanders.
Posted by: Jeff Febi | 11 January 2013 at 12:23 PM
Hear hear, absolutely spot on, and until road corridors are reclaimed by authorities "without compensation" the problem is going to keep increasing..... bring in the Gurkhas not G4S.
Posted by: Kevin O'Regan | 11 January 2013 at 07:29 AM