A Member of Parliament is planning to buy an aircraft to service the people in his electorate because the district is remote and air transport is the only means.
Member for Telefomin Peter Iwei has set aside K250,000 from his electoral funds to purchase a light aircraft to service the electorate.
Mr Iwei said that the joint district planning and budget priorities committee had allocated K150,000, Sandaun provincial government had chipped in K60,000 and contributions from the other districts had brought the total amount to K250,000.
Mr Iwei said that it was impossible to travel by land or build a good road network because of the rugged mountainous terrain.
He said that throwing money into road infrastructure would be a wasteful exercise.
Mr Iwei and the provincial government were negotiating with the Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) for the possibility of leasing one of their aircraft to service the electorate.
Currently, the MAF is the only airline servicing the area but flights are not regular.