Garaina beats tyranny of isolation

By CYRIL GARE
The people of Garaina in the Waria valley of Bulolo district in Morobe are tired of being bullied and stifled by the system.
It is to say “we ain’t breaking the law, it is the law breaking us”.
It is an expressed antipathy of public servants whom people say are posted to work and live in Garaina but instead operate in a façade of locations somewhere between Lae, Bulolo, Wau or elsewhere in the country where ‘life is better’.
They receive full pay but at the same time are ignorant of the reason why they are being paid. The reason you are paid is because there is an available position in Garaina. You are placed there to stay, live and serve people of Garaina. It is deceit when you are paid on a Garaina position but not living and serving in Garaina.
Sin against people and the State is treason. The law on treason must apply on the recalcitrant public servants. Administrative disciplinary laws under the general orders (GO) are either lax, mediocre or compromised as the boss cannot be trusted, he is in the team.
Man is made from the image of God, so the Bible says. Therefore, we see God through the people. ‘People’ is God’s number one business on earth. ‘People’ is the reason why God sent Christ on earth – for the salvation of humanity. Religion is nothing but people. Politics is nothing but people. Business is nothing but people. And so is life on earth.
Any person who reneges on people is a renege on God Himself thus, is due for God’s punishment.
In the last session of Parliament, Public Service Minister, Elias Kapavore revealed that over 9,000 public servants were unattached but on full pay. PNG’s public service salary bill stands at K4.2 billion annually, nearly half of our national budget. Such is the strain on people’s neck. Like Garaina, such is the extent of the bureaucratic stifling that is rampant in our midst.
From the shadows, they operate a malady of fraud and treasonable acts using their ‘positions in office’. They influence contracts to be awarded to a select-interest ‘service provider’. In return, there is a promise of a 10 per cent cut. But the cheque cannot be printed yet until and unless the Section 32 officer has signed and authorised processing. The promise is now further extended to everyone in the assembly line including the printer, tea boy and the driver. The boss is in the team.
I was told the current Waria LLG president gets his pay, accesses Waria LLG funds but lives in Goroka and has with him two vehicles that belong to Garaina.
In Dec, 2011 three local contractors were paid K2 million to build the Wau to Garaina road “to link the untapped Waria valley to the outside world,” The National reported then.
The funding was a portion of a K3.8 million allocated by the Morobe Provincial Government to link almost 10,000 people from the area who have to walk five days to Wau before boarding a PMV to Lae.
The contractors were allocated and shared the work; one to build from the Wau-Biaru section; the other to carry on from Biaru-Sim and the third to build from Sim to Bapi then to Garaina. The Sim to Garaina portion will be a new cut access.
As of Sept 20, 2018, seven years on, this road is incomplete and Waria people continue to suffer in silence and fend for themselves with ‘isolation poverty’.
Local MP and Minister for Communications and Energy, Sam Basil told ABC news on Aug 30, 2018 he was still hopeful to get Garaina connected by road.
Now in his third consecutive term, Basil says he has not given up and is still adamant to get Waria, which is the sixth and last local level government area of Bulolo, to be connected by road.
Waria LLG, whose Garaina station once boasted of hosting the “5th Best Tea in World” destination, remains the only LLG of Bulolo not connected by road. Other Bulolo LLGs include Mumeng, Watut, Buang, Wau Rural, and Wau-Bulolo Urban.
Basil said the Bulolo DDA has invested in new and bigger excavators and bulldozers to cut through thick jungles and mountain ranges towards Bapi and into Garaina. I was told, these machines are now defunct and non-operational in Bulolo and awaiting spare parts and repair.
While waiting for the road, the Bulolo DDA bought a small nine-seater plane in late 2014 – P2 SAM – Spirit of Bulolo which is managed and operated by third level airline company, North Coast Aviation under a subsidised partnership arrangement.
On Tuesday, Sep 18, 2018, the Waria LLG nanager (named) was assaulted by disgruntled service providers at Garaina station. I was present. The reason for the assault was under payment of cleaning services on the station grounds by villagers, preparing for the 43rd Independence Day celebrations.
But there is more, people told me. Previous payments for the station cleaning services totalling K18,000 are owed to the people by Waria LLG since 2011. Different Waria LLG presidents and managers come and go yet the peoples’ claims were not honoured. Five different claims regarding this payment were submitted and the people are still waiting for their payment.
In the district headquarters in Wau, senior public servants with fraudulent history are holding offices. Two of these senior officers were arrested, charged by police and appeared in court for misappropriating some K80,000 belonging to a school in the district. Instead, of being sidelined until their matter is cleared by court, they are allowed to hold office which is “sickening and worrying,” said Norman Botama, a former police mobile squad officer and now a Garaina villager.
Norman said police in the district were also not trusted.
“Few years back, the community assisted police in rounding down a notorious gang that had been terrorising people in Waria valley. We killed four of them and confiscated several weapons including a M16 rifle, an Israeli made automatic rifle, several home-made guns, and two hand grenades. All these weapons were surrendered to police. To date, there is no mention or record of these weapons. Have police destroyed them, we didn’t see? We suspected police to have sold them on the black market.”
But not all must be shouldered by public servants alone. Educated elites from Waria valley are equally responsible for their people’s woes by way of disunity. For example, until recently, Shirley Harou, from Garaisa, was Morobe Provincial Administrator. She allowed the building of a new high school and a new state-of-the-art hospital in Garaisa instead of Garaina station where the State land is available, wide and rolling flatly, and home to once “5th Best tea” in the world.
Uniting elites of Waria valley is a tedious task ahead.
“If the Government is doing little in acknowledging us as Garaina people, that is alright. We have to acknowledge ourselves first and foremost before anyone else does.
“Garaina badly needs to be united as one people. We need to meet and plan together for the future. If not, nobody else will come to the rescue of Garaina except the Garaina people ourselves must take the lead,” said Boto Gaupu, a Gaure villager and CEO of the Cocoa Board of PNG (CBPNG).
“I appeal to all Garainas wherever you are in PNG (and abroad) to come back and help to change Garaina. As a Garaina myself, I can only do a part to my level,” he said.
In a benevolent push for change in the Waria valley, Boto has introduced cocoa in the area last year. Currently, 80,000 seedlings are in nurseries across four strategic locations in the valley and 80,000 more had been planted and should mature by February and March in 2019, marking an all-new frontier of innovation and change to come in the area.
Technical officers from the Cocoa Board are frequenting the area conducting various trainings for farmers and preparing for the distribution of solar combination driers, the arrival of drive in buyers, air freighting and logistics, and marketing of Garaina cocoa.
It is envisaged that cocoa will ‘flush the Waria valley’ over tea and coffee which were commodities of the past and rejuvenate the cash economy in the area.
In the national front, the Cocoa Board plans to increase the country’s cocoa production to 109,000 tonnes from the current 40,000 tonnes annually in the next five years. The Cocoa Board is riding on its District Cocoa Nursery Project which is being implemented under MOAs with 15 districts and three provincial governments so far.
To achieve unity and change, Gaupu introduced a radical cross-cutting intervention through the launching of the Waria Valley Independence Celebrations and Unity Cup soccer tournament which recently concluded its second year of celebrations at the Garaina station from Sept 9 to 19.
“We Garainas can do a lot of things. We have a lot of resources. We have lot of educated people. We must exploit our untapped resources. Tea and coffee that were introduced in the past are sitting here idle and undeveloped today. Cocoa is now being introduced in the Waria valley, a new frontier, where it is expected to provide a new lease of life for our neglected people.
“This Unity Cup is the brainchild of the organising committee to unite the people here at Waria Valley. There has been so much disunity along the way.
“We need to establish peace somehow and sports is one simple way we can try to achieve peace among the Garaina people. When peace is achieved, gold buyers, trade store operators, women and children can move freely.
“This tournament focuses on young people. We need to change the mindset of our young people who have the energy to bring about change and restore hope for the future.
“Garainas are strong people. Garainas were carriers and scouts in the early explorers’ expeditions into the highlands. Early explorers found Garainas to be strong people. We had scouts, hell drivers and of course good soccer players too.
“Never underestimate yourself and be self-defeated. It is yourself that is stopping yourself to find your true value and reach your dream,” Gaupu concluded.

• Cyril Gare is a freelance journalist.