Now you can drive there!

ROADS

By DANIEL KUMBON
EVERYBODY cried like small children at the sight of many vehicles appearing on the horizon on a new road into Pasalagus in Maramun for the first time.
In the convoy of over 20 vehicles was Member for Wabag and Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, Dr Lino Tom who went there to celebrate Independence last year with these people.
People from every corner of Maramuni were there in tears after living in isolation since the first government patrol penetrated the area in 1958.
They had walked in from all over Maramuni and camped at Pasalagus for two days anticipating to meet Dr Lino, shake his hands and cry before him to express their tears of joy for releasing them from bondage.
They were not ashamed to cry because the more than 15,000 men, women and children never thought they would ever see anything like this would ever happen in their life-time.
Today was indeed a big day, one that would be etched forever in their memories. They had given up hope and continued to live in isolation until the road was completed on time for their member to come celebrate independence with them.
“Everybody cried. We all cried when we saw the first vehicles arrive over the mountain range. It was a miracle to see all these cars come and drive up and down the airstrip giving rides to people. We never thought cars would ever come here,” Cr Samuel Amene the Pasalagus town councillor said.
“I can’t describe the scene adequately. People just stood and cried like small children. It resembled a funeral scene. People did not eat for days after the member left. They just sat and discussed what had just happened. Cars coming into Maramuni with Dr Lino was a miracle. I won’t forget the emotional scenes.”
Cr Samuel Amene thanked Dr Lino Tom and the Marape -Basil government for wiping away their tears by building the 45-kilometer road from Wabag to Pasalagus.
In fact, the people of Maramuni will not cry anymore because the new road has been declared a national highway and plans are underway to extend the road all the way to Angoram in East Sepik province.
The Marape-Basil government has already allocated K8million to do the design work. And up to K100 million will be used for the actual construction of the new highway next year, 2023.
The initial construction of the road from Wabag to Pasalagus had started in 2019 after Dr Lino Tom won the Wabag Open seat in 2017.
Dr Lino was in opposition for two years and could not do much but when the Marape-Basil government was formed in May 2019, the new Maramuni road was started.
An initial K5million funding was allocated to build the road under the national government’s popular ‘Connect PNG’ Infrastructure Development program. Over time, additional funding was used bringing the total to over K10million.
This year, K10million more has been allocated to complete the project to ensure Maramuni people travelled on a good road to bring their fresh garden produce to Wabag or up to Porgera when the mine re-opens.
District Administrator John Tondop said they have to complete the Wabag- Maramuni road urgently because a new hospital for Maramuni depends on it.
Tondop said K13 million has already been secured from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the new hospital but the funds could be withdrawn if there was no proper road in place.
He said a new high school will also be built in Maramuni.
Right now, seven excavators, two bulldozers and five dump trucks are working around the clock to get the road completed.
Prime Minister James Marape will be officially invited to open the new national highway project in the next few weeks.
The road has already impacted on the lives of the people. A can of coke used to cost K7 but now it was selling at K4. A packet of rice used to cost K15 but dropped to K8 per packet. The prices will keep dropping due to competition when the road is fully operational.
People were depended heavily on air transport to fly in supplies from Mt Hagen and that was the reason it was expensive to buy anything cheap in Maramuni. No more will they pay K420 one way for a plane ride from Mt Hagen. Air transport will only be necessary for emergencies or for official travel.
Now they have a decent road, one that will expand to a national highway. This will enable the people to bury the bodies of loved ones in Maramuni soil. Before, they buried them in Wabag, Mt Hagen or Port Moresby or where ever they had migrated to in search of a better life. It was expensive to airlift bodies home.
Last Tuesday morning, Feb 15, this interview was interrupted when, Cr Samuel Amene was contacted by Cr Mathew Kuk to wait for him at Wapenenamanda airport to transport the body of his dead mother home.
Cr Kuk was flying in from Port Moresby with his mother’s casket and asked Cr Amene to wait for him to transport the body in his 10-seater for burial at Ilya village in Maramuni.
Many Maramuni people living outside who owned vehicles were now driving to their homeland. And some have begun to run PMVs and charging as much as K60 per person.
Former member for Wabag, Samuel Abal had attempted to build the Maramuni road from Londol in the Kompiam Ambum electorate to the east but it wasn’t completed when he lost the 2012 national elections.

People shed tears of joy as first vehicles drive into Maramuni in Enga on Independence Day after 64 years of waiting.

Seven years later, Dr Lino Tom started building it from Mulitake in Laiagam district in the west. He successfully broke through and reached Pasalagus in September last year which forced the people to cry and not eat for several days.
But these people who cried were not yet born or were very small children when a cadet patrol officer, Graham Hardy was appointed to Wabag patrol post in 1954. Now, over 90 years of age, Hardy still lives in Australia.
He has written an enthralling book titled “Over the Hills and Far Away. He devotes a couple of chapters about his work and time in Wabag and makes mention of Tei Abal and Constable Perano who helped him conduct a successful patrol to Maramuni in 1958.
Hardy was accompanied by Don Vincin, a health worker at Wabag hospital. Here is an extract from Hardy’s book about the area as he experienced it.
The Maramuni and Wale/Tarua census divisions were located on the northern slopes of the main range, generally north-west and north of Wabag, in the now Enga Province and were named for the rivers which flow into the Karawari and eventually the Sepik.
It is a remote mountainous area, thinly populated and a couple of days walk from (then) Laiagam Patrol Post to the first population. Wabag in 1958 was a typical sub-district headquarters, accessible only by air.
It would be a couple of years before the road connection to Mt Hagen and the outside world was completed. The only permanent materials house was the recently completed Assistant District Officer’s (ADO) residence, the remaining buildings being a mixture of local material and corrugated iron and kunai thatch roofing.
Wabag was a pretty station and at an altitude of 6,700 feet had a pleasant climate. At the time Bob MacIlwain was the Assistant District Officer (a title later to be changed to Assistant District Commissioner) and Dr Keith Wilson was the Government Medical Officer.
By 1958 the anti-yaws campaign had been launched throughout Papua New Guinea and it was decided a joint DDS&NA/PHD patrol would be carried out in the Maramuni and Wale/Tarua to record the initial census and to carry out anti-yaws treatment as well as any other medical treatment that could be provided.
At the time, the area was still part of the Restricted Area, and although the people were peaceable enough, officially a PHD patrol by itself would be against the rules. Earlier patrols by Jim Taylor and a few others had passed through over the years since the Enga had first been visited pre-war, but were few and far between.
As a matter of interest, Danny Leahy had passed through while escorting a party of Catholic nuns escaping from the Japanese invasion of the Sepik on their way to Wabag. The last patrol before this one was carried out by ADO Dick White five years before.
An Administration presence in the Maramuni had been maintained in the person of Constable Perano, himself a Maramuni man, for some years. Perano was a quiet, unassuming man, who probably would not have stood out if posted in a normal police detachment, but a decision by some earlier kiap to send him to live in his home area gave him his chance, and it may well have been a unique experiment in extending government influence in a Restricted Area.
He supervised construction of a few rest houses at strategic spots, and looked after the fairly primitive track system. He no doubt arbitrated minor disputes. He may well have been the first indigenous kiap! Every six months or so he would emerge from the bush to collect his pay and some “luxuries”: bully beef, rice and tobacco.
We departed from Laiagam where Chris Day PO and his wife Gwen were posted. It took two days to cross the range and reach the first rest house and population at Woilep.
The main objectives of the patrol were for me to record the census for the first time while Don and his team administered penicillin injections to all, and rendered other medical treatments.
Don and I got on well together, and his medical team was very efficient. His head orderlies had been well trained by a former EMA at Wabag, John Tommerup , and included Tei Abal who later became a prominent political figure in post-independence Papua New Guinea.
Our last stop in the Maramuni was at Kaiyematok rest house, where we also built an aid post. Our visit here coincided with a visit by five men from an unpatrolled area further north in the Sepik District, who claimed Don and I were the first Europeans they had seen.
Now, after 64 years from that initial contact a new road has finally reached Pasalagus and feasibility studies under way for construction of the new Enga – Sepik national highway.
Many Wabag Open members, apart from Sam Abal had failed to build a road to Maramuni and the area had remained forgotten and isolated until Dr Lino Tom won the 2017 national elections.
During his campaign, he had walked to Maramuni and assured the people that if he won, he would build a road and open up the area.
But he was in opposition for two years and couldn’t do much. But when the Marape-Basil government came into power in May, 2019, Dr Lino Tom was placed in a better position to fulfill his election promise.
He did not waste time to organise funding to build the road. He even went to Maramuni and spent a week at the construction site in the jungle to speed up the work, motivate workers and inspire people to take ownership of the project.
Cr Samuel Amene said God in His Divine mercy had ensured that Dr Lino Tom won the election especially so he could build the Maramuni road and save his people.
“We believe he will deliver the new Maramuni hospital too as well as the high school and complete the Enga-Sepik national highway,” Cr Amene said
“God has sent Dr Lino to save Maramuni. He is our saviour. We now await the official opening by Prime Minister James Marape and perhaps cry some more as we set our eyes to a brighter future.”

• Daniel Kumbon is a freelance writer.