Highway rehab to be complete in 2028: Wereh

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
THE Highlands Highway rehabilitation programme is expected to be complete in 2028, Department of Works and Highways secretary David Wereh says.
“The 10-year rehab programme started in 2016 and the department has so far signed couple of contracts with various stakeholders to improve the highway starting from Lae, Morobe, to Hengenofi, Eastern Highlands,” he said.
Yesterday, Wereh signed a K9 million contract with one of it’s major partners in the rehabilitation programme, Bonafica SPA, at Government House in Port Moresby to improve parts of the highway in Jiwaka.
“This contractor has been in the country for more than 20 years,” he said.
“They will help with the designing of the of the two lane bridges which is part of the programme that the department is working towards.”
Wereh also said with the rehabilitation programme, there would be upgrading of all single lane roads and bridges to double lanes with much of the funding to come from the Asian Development Bank.
He said that funding had not been a major challenge so far for the rehabilitation programme as the department continued to sign contracts with its partners, however, the only setbacks in recent years that they had faced had been the Coronavirus pandemic.