Craft vendors call for proper road, facility

CRAFT vendors who sell items to tourists when cruise ships arrive at East New Britain’s (ENB) Rabaul Port, are concerned about the poor state of the road leading to the port.
Nancy Wartovo, from Matupit Island, sells handcraft and meri blouses, laplaps and shirts to tourists when cruise ships arrive.
“For years, cruise ships have been visiting this port, but nothing has been done to fix this road,” she said.
“At least build a proper market shelter for us to sell our products to tourists.
“Allowing tourists to walk around freely inside the shelter to buy items,” Wartovo said.
Kally Ephraim, 43, a vendor also from Matupit Island, said authorities must upgrade the road.
“Tourists see our bad road conditions, giving them a bad picture (of us),” Ephraim said.
“As vendors, we do not want this.
“ENB and Rabaul have historical sites which tourists want to see.”
Acting Rabaul administrator and the chief executive officer of the District Development Authority Freddy Lemeki said road upgrading and development in the port area had started, with K9.2million allocated for the project.
The K9.2 million is being shared by the provincial government, District Services Improvement Programme funds and PNG Port Services.
“The road is more than 1km and upgrading and proper road sealing will be done,” Lemeki said.