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ESP road impassable
By YEHIURA
HRIEHWAZI
FRUSTRATED villagers have planted sago
palms, bananas, coco-nuts and other fruit trees on a major feeder road
in the Sausia area of East Sepik province.
The 60km Sausia-Negrie-Yangoru road , which used to be a vital link that
served 35 villages with about 20,000 to 30,000 people, has deteriorated
to an impassable state at various sections.
Three bridges on the road were also in a terrible state of disrepair,
the villagers said.
The National visited the Sausia villagers and their Ward 18 councillor
John Monginoui last Friday and they all spoke about the frustrations
they faced daily in getting their cash crops like cocoa, vanilla, rice
and food crops and vegetables to markets in Wewak.
They complained that Governor Peter Wararu Waranaka told a public
gathering at Nagum High School early last year that the road would be
repaired after Easter last year, but to date nothing had happened.
Mr Waranaka could not be reached for comment but his officers said he
had recently purchased a bulldozer and a grader under his discretionary
electoral funds and Yangoru-Sausia electorate’s district roads
improvement programme (DRIP).
Mr Waranaka was elected into Parliament as Member for Yangoru-Sausia in
the 2004 by-election.
They said the governor was doing his best in his short period in office
but he was racing against time.
They blamed past MPs of the electorate for failing in their duties to
improve the Sausia-Negrie-Yangoru road and many others in similar
conditions of disrepair.
Former MP Bernard Hagoria and the man in the forefront of the Julian
Moti case, Joseph Assaigo, are from the area.
Councillor Monginoui said some of the villages affected were Yehimbolye
No.1, Kinieneng, Sufonduo, Nakanduohin, Numbohu, Huarihin, Kinienumbohu,
Sausenumbohu, Neimu, Nahombi, Afawia, Huaimbohe and Handara.
Due to the bad state of the road, people were losing interest in
harvesting their cocoa.
A number of cocoa fermentries were not producing to full capacity and
people were losing out in essential revenue.
 
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