Bad roads costing oil palm projects millions

FIXING roads in the Hoskins and Bialla oil palm projects, West New Britain, will mean good returns on investments, Oil Palm Industry Corporation (OPIC) says.
Financial controller Kepson Pupita and project Manager Tobias Wambu gave this assessment after their inspection of the deteriorating oil palm roads at the two project areas last week.
From their assessments, oil palm harvest in small block holders up to 30 per cent and 50 in some areas were not being picked up for processing due to poor road conditions.
From their calculations of the Hoskins Project, 1291 small block holders are losing K18.7 million.
Moreover, the country is losing K45 million because the fresh fruit bunches cannot be picked up for processing.
This represents 3000ha of harvest loss with about 74.7 tons of the fresh fruit bunches.
The assessment indicated that only 226 small block holders are affected with a loss of K2.4 million to the growers while the loss to the country is K5.9 million.
Combining the two projects 1517 small blocks are missing out on K21.2 million while the country’s loss is over K51 million annually.
With the National Government allocation of K75 million over a four year period to fix the oil palm roads, this would be a good return on investment.
The two officials said K15 million would be used annually on maintaining the deteriorating oil Palm Roads in the Projects areas which include Hoskins, Bialla, Higaturu and the Alotau project.
Meanwhile, Governor Sasindran Muthuvel and Talasea MP, Francis Maneke are also pushing for the fixing of the oil palm roads because it is to the benefit of all parties concerned.