Highway of promise

Weekender

By Dr KEVIN PAMBA
On Friday, Jan 4, I drove from Ialibu to Kagua. I took the trip to see the newly upgraded and sealed road connecting these two district centres of Southern Highlands.
Like all roads into rural Papua New Guinea, the rehabilitated Ialibu-Kagua road passes through breath-taking sceneries. The stunning views are a photographer’s delight and can distract a new driver from the hazards posed by the many sharp corners and the narrowness of the road. The numerous sharp corners and narrowness are due to the scope of the upgrade merely following the existing provincial road size.
The new-look road was the talk of the town in the Ialibu-Imbonggu areas where I was on holidays so I drove off to Kagua to check it out.
The conversations among the locals centred around the rehabilitated road becoming a segment of the much-talked about Gulf-Southern Highlands Highway. The highway was first proposed by the then Governor of SHP the late Anderson Agiru in 1998 as one of the economic spin-offs of the now aborted Papua New Guinea-to-Queensland Gas Project.
Agiru told me in February 1998 that one of his aims was to see that the proposed highway was linked to a sea port at Paia Inlet in the Gulf of Papua near Kikori station. Agiru said back then the proposed highway and port at Paia Inlet would serve as an alternate for the resource-rich highlands provinces and open up this part of the country to socio-economic development.
At Agiru’s funeral in April 2016, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced that the highway would be pursued and named in honour of the charismatic leader. In September that year contract for the construction of the last remaining 40km from Semberigi to Erave section of the road was signed by the Governor-General the Grand Chief Sir Michael Ogio (now deceased). According to recent media reports construction of this segment is nearing completion. The Kikori to Semberigi section was already built by 2016.
The existing Kagua to Erave portion is yet to be upgraded and sealed.
A 2018 Department of Works report on the Ialibu-Kagua road project to the financier, the Asian Development Bank, reads:
“(The) Ialibu-Kagua subproject is a 31.78 km road section that connects the government stations of Ialibu to Kagua in the Southern Highlands Province (SHP).
“These road sections will eventually connect Erave in the SHP with Kikori in the Gulf Province and will link up Central Province and NCD Port Moresby.”
“(The) Ialibu-Kagua sub-project road is one of the three road sub-projects of Tranche 2 of the Highlands Region Roads Improvement Investment Program (HRRIIP), an ADB assisted road program.”
“The civil works for the Ialibu-Kagua road sub-project officially started on May 16, 2016 and was completed on May 16, 2018 as scheduled.”
When completed the Kikori to SHP section of the highway would rekindle the route of the expeditions led by the pioneer colonial government explorers such as Ivan Champion, Claude Champion, Jack Hides and James O’Malley in the 1930s.
The rehabilitated Ialibu-Kagua road is godsend for the long suffering people along its route. Prior to the upgrade and sealing, the poor condition of the road was such that even the best off-road four-wheel drive (4WD) vehicles could only negotiate it on first and second for the most part.
I experienced this on the Seven Corner to Inalure village section in December, 2014. At that time the Ialibu to Seven Corner section was upgraded in preparation for sealing so driving was pleasant while the rest of the road to Kagua was bad.
There was a time when enterprising Kagua men were once known for replacing the broken springs of their Toyota Landcruiser pick-ups and troopers with timber due to the bad roads in the area. This phenomenon gave birth to the folklore of the “wood men”. This trait is described in the native Kewa language (or Kewa-pi), spoken by majority of the people of eastern SHP as repena me wari ali (literally meaning man made of wood).
The Kagua folks were known for their ‘brukbruk’ Landcruisers transporting people, coffee and other cargo between their area and other parts of the province and the Highlands region. The other reason for the “wood men” label is an unsavory one – the fitful act of chopping another person like wood to show anger or loss.
The “wood men” folklore aside, in January 2019 a Toyota Coaster or Hiace bus ride to this rural government station is no longer a distant dream but a reality – no more painful rides on ‘brukbruk’ Landcruisers.
The locals along the road corridor have welcomed the development with entrepreneurs beginning to replace their ‘brukbruk’ Landcruisers with Coasters, Toyota Hiace buses and secure PMV trucks. Modern permanent homes including trade stores and churches can be seen replacing the kunai thatched huts of old along the length of the road.
A community leader and councilor, Francis Nembu of Kepik (Kipurupa) Ward One in the Kewa-pi Local Level Government in neighbouring Ialibu-Pangia District said the upgraded road was a huge relief for the people. The sealed road passes through the ward of Councillor Nembu. The leader was an elated man when I caught up with him at his abode along the side of the road near Aropa (Karanas) village on Friday, Jan 4.
Nembu said the rehabilitated road has made it easy for PMV buses and trucks to transport people between Kagua and Ialibu and onwards to Mendi and Mt Hagen to access services and do business.
He said in Tok Pisin: “Nau ol pipol bilong mipela ken boilim kumu stap long pot na kalap long bas go Ialibu na kisim oil na sol na kam bek hariap. Long dispela em mipela hamamas tru long siling kamap long rot bilong mipela.
“Nau yet em ol pipol bisi long go kam long bus long nupela kolta rot.” (Today our people can have their vegetables boiling in the pot and hop on a bus to Ialibu and collect their cooking oil and salt and return quickly. For this, we are very grateful for the upgrading and sealing of our road. At present, our people are busy travelling on buses on the newly sealed road).
The rehabilitated Ialibu-Kagua road adds to other arterial roads in eastern SHP that have been upgraded and sealed over the last 15 years. These include the Kisenepoi/Walume turn-off from the Highlands Highway to Ialibu segment (which is the start of the proposed Agiru Highway), Ialibu to Pangia road, the Kisenepoi to Mendi section of the Highlands Highway, Ialibu town roads and Pangia station roads. Roads in Kagua and Erave stations are yet to be upgraded and sealed.
There are other key feeder roads in Kagua that have yet to be rehabilitated. This is in a part of SHP that is fertile and made headways in coffee and tea plantations and cattle grazing under a World Bank-funded project for SHP in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.
All these provincial government-owned plantations in Usa, Sumi and Kuare and the large cattle ranch in Sugu Valley including others in different parts of SHP and Hela collapsed in the early 1990s. The demise of these agri-businesses was discussed in my previous article in the Weekender which is available on this link: https://www.thenational.com.pg/will-the-phoenix-rise-in-resource-rich-region/.
Successive provincial governments have talked about re-opening these plantations and cattle ranches but this has not happened.
It is anticipated that the rehabilitated Ialibu-Kagua road would rekindle the progress made in agriculture and other socio-economic services in the 1970s and 1980s to spur on new developments in the 2020s and onwards. For the locals along the road corridor like Councillor Francis Nembu, the sealed Ialibu-Kagua road carries much promise for a better future.

  •  Dr Kevin Pamba PhD is a Divine Word University-based researcher on stakeholder communication and engagement matters in the petroleum project areas in Hela and SHP. Dr Pamba graduated with a PhD last year (2018) after successfully completing his thesis titled “Communicating with indigenous landowners in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project: A Papua New Guinea Case Study”.

One thought on “Highway of promise

  • Dr KEVIN PAMBA, I am the wife of John Hardy who started the Sugu Valley Ranch. I came across your article while researching for my memoir about our time in PNG and I am really happy to read about the road. I will look up your other writings. John died two years ago. We spent 7 years setting up a Sugu. I’d love to chat.

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