2000 want electricity supplied to Dona

Highlands

By TONY PALME
NEARLY 2000 people in Dona, North Waghi district, Jiwaka, want PNG power to connect electricity into their area.
Community leader Kapal Teine said despite Dona being situated along the old Highlands Highway linking Waghi Bridge and Banz, with powerlines passing through it, Dona never had access to electricity since 1997, when Dr Fabian Pok, who was first elected as North Waghi MP, initiated the power project.
The request for power connection comes after a power pole with its braces fell down, dragging lines onto the ground, and laying them on the road.
Teine said electricity to Domil and Nondugl had been cut off for nearly two months.
“When PNG Power comes to do reconnection, they must connect electricity into Dona.
“For 20 years we’ve been deprived of this important basic service. It is very unfair to the people of Dona seeing that electricity lines run from Banz to Nondugl with some of the poles resting along Dona,” Teine said.
He added that Dona community hosts three elementary schools, Dona Primary School, Dona health centre, Olo health centre, and more than 20 churches t.
He said Dona community has been overlooked and in it’s time they had access to power.
“We just need a transformer to connect electricity into the schools and churches,” he said.
“It’s unfair that Kapalku and Nondugl have access to electricity while Dona, which is situated between these two locations, sees the powerlines pass through it without being connected.
“We are not foreigners, we are Jiwaka citizens.
It’s really a discrimination that we are not receiving electricity.”