Border project work starts

THE Border Development Authority has started work to develop the K90 million Trade and Investment Wutung border pilot project in West Sepik.
The Asian Development Bank funded project that will run for four years is the authority’s first major border project since being established by an Act of Parliament in 2008.
It will be developed at Wutung village on the Papua New Guinea-Indonesian border.
Authority executive chairman Douglass Tomuriesa said the start commencement of this project indicated that the government was serious about addressing illegal activities such as the smuggling of guns, drugs and pornographic materials, and the exploitation of marine products, flora and fauna along its international borders.
This project will see the construction of an office complex to house offices for border agency officers like customs, police, defence, immigration, National Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Authority (NAQIA) and commerce.
Fifteen new houses will be built and 11 houses will be renovated at the Wutung station to accommodate these officers and their families.
Wutung villagers will benefit from the social programme, which will cover safe motherhood, education grants for underprivileged children, HIV awareness, water/sanitation and rural electrification projects.
Authority operations director Barnabas Neausemale has urged Wutung villagers to cooperate with the developers for the sake of other neglected people living in remote border areas.
Neausemale made the remark during the first site meeting with villagers, contractors and Sandaun provincial administration officers at Wutung village last week. 
The contractor Covec (PNG) has already moved onto the project site and has started clearance and mobility work.
Neausemale said similar border posts along the PNG-Indonesian border would be built at Weam in Western province.
A border post will be built at Mabutawan along the PNG-Australian border in Western and at Kangu beach, on the PNG-Solomon Islands border in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
“The Wutung border posts have to be successful in order for those other posts to be built.”
Neausemale urged the villagers not to disturb the project as it would result in legal implications and the National Government would have a bad reputation with the ADB.
The Sandaun provincial health division will help the authority to provide mobile clinics to implement the safe motherhood programme.
The authority plans to renovate the Wutung clinic and build medical staff houses so that villagers can assess health services there. The clinic that caters for about 10,000 people was closed about five years ago because of a lack of staff.
The Sandaun provincial AIDS secretariat is willing to help the authority implement a HIV/AIDS programme, while authority officers work on water/sanitation and rural electrification projects.