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Sports |
Costly neglect of infrastructure
LAE roads are in a disgrace. There is
no maintenance. Let me tell you about what was, for a long time,
the best road in Lae. This is Busu Road from Butibum to Malahang.
This rough dirt and gravel track was completely upgraded to
service Lae Industrial Estate, IFC Fish Factory, Arnotts, etc,
in 1997.
According to the specification of this road, it should have
received a scheduled top coat respray no later than late 2004.
This would then keep the road in top condition until 2011-12.
Until now, it has not received its respray. The first real
potholes started appearing last year, and are gradually
spreading. Most of the road is still good, but from now on, the
deterioration will accelerate, as the old bitumen perishes from
the sun, causing cracking and allowing rainwater to penetrate.
Within a few more years – during which from past experience, it
would receive no proper maintenance – the road will revert to a
potholed obstacle course. Eventual reconstruction will then cost
much more than proper maintenance would have cost.
Why is this? Because politicians and bureaucrats do not receive
medals for maintaining roads. They prefer to be associated with
the glamour of new projects, using the money that should have
been spent on maintenance. Eventually those new projects
deteriorate through lack of maintenance and the whole process is
repeated.
Maintenance of existing infrastructure must be a top priority in
this country. This should be the main objective of the various
national, state and LLG Works Departments, which already exist.
I know from personal experience that there are many good Works
engineers in PNG.
But year after year, their maintenance allocation – inadequate
in the first place – is purloined by politicians and bureaucrats
for other purposes.
Give them the money and the motivation, and I’m sure they can
make a vast improvement in the infrastructure of this nation.
Braid Anderson
Lae
 
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