Better roads on the way

 By NATASHA EMECK

WORKS Secretary David Wereh yesterday announced the department will be focusing on regional roads development this year.

Wereh said those roads were the most important network of roads in Papua New Guinea.

He outlined plans the department had for the year at a dedication service in Port Moresby yesterday, saying they would focus on regional roads. 

He said no sustainable maintenance programme was in place to keep rural roads in reasonable condition despite those roads making up 80 per cent of the country’s network. 

“We’re changing the way we conduct our business,” Wereh said.

“We will now strengthen the regional offices and try to redistribute the enormous workload we’ve had. 

“And start looking at our maintenance needs on a global perspective throughout our country and look at how we can decentralise now to the regional offices so they can become autonomous in the way they start to deliver maintenance and reconstruction programmes in the country.”

He said the department had a regional team in place and the work plan for the network had been completed.

The Works Department has been allocated K2.7 billion for the infrastructure sector, which was the largest slice of the 2014 Budget. 

Wereh said starting with national priority roads, the department aimed to deliver 3,300kms of road upgrades this year, looking in particular to repair those sections of roads that had become obsolete.

“If we want to keep roads in good condition, we’re looking at about K700 million per year for the national roads alone and another K700-K800 million for the rural roads.  

“And as for the reconstruction issues we need another K300-K400million to continue to upkeep those sections that are already well made,” he said. 

He said about K3 billion worth in maintenance backlog still needed to be addressed by the department, which could not do so in past years because of a lack of funding. 

“Over the years we have accumulated many sections of roads because of untimely maintenance and with the kind of funding we get every year it’s not possible to address the maintenance backlog issues that we’re faced with,” Wereh said.