By ANDREW ALPHONSE
MORE than 6000 labourers are using bare their hands and tools to build a new road linking Kuare and Tindua in Pangia district of the Southern Highlands province.
Team leader and American missionary Wayne Fair told The National the local villages formed the Kuare Road Builders Association with the single aim of opening up a basic road link for the 15,000 people in the area.
Mr Fair said the community-based organisation is an initiative of the people who had been denied basic government services due to the non availability of a proper road link.
He said the group had been working on the road every Tuesday since March 1998.
They had so far cleared more than 5.5km of thick bush, penetrating the rugged Limbo mountain range.
He said when he first went to settle as a Baptist missionary at Kawari village in 1997, the locals suggested building the road between Kuare and Tindua as it is economically viable than travelling north west through the dilapidated Kuare into Kagua road.
Mr Fair said though it is a very painstaking exercise, the locals were determined and hope to complete the road even if no help comes from the authorities.
Last January, Ialibu Pangia MP and Public Service Minister Peter O’Neill gave the labourers K100,000 for the road which was used to pay the labourers and tools.
AusAID through the community development scheme also assisted the group with K12,000.
Mr Fair said apart from completing the 12km road, a permanent bridge is needed to be built across the Yalo River.
He said association executives are working on a submission seeking provincial government’s assistance in completing the road.
Governor Anderson Agiru when contacted said he was aware of the road and has met with Mr O’Neill to discuss making available funding in the 2008 SHP development budget.
Mr Agiru commended Mr Fair and the Kuare people for taking the initiative to help themselves and encouraged all Southern Highlanders to follow the same.