K3bil highway to get the best treatment: Wereh

By JEFFREY ELAPA
THE work on the K3 billion Highlands Highway rehabilitation and upgrading programme has started and will have one of the best bitumen standard highway in the country.
Works Secretary David Wereh said the 430km project from Nazab, in Morobe, to Mt Hagen, in Western Highlands, would cost about K3 billion and funded through an Asian Development Bank loan.
The scope included improving and upgrading the highway with asphalt, and replacing bridges and culverts.
He said the project would be delivered in three stages by three different contractors working on each of the sections from Nazab to Henganofi, Henganofi-Simbu, the Simbu section itself and Simbu-Kagamuga in Mt Hagen.
He said the highway would be a 40m wide two-lane standard asphalt road and special engineering methods and techniques would be used on certain sections of the 57km Simbu section.
Wereh said the Simbu section was problematic because of landslides and would require a special engineering design called as “earth reinforced wall” to stabilise the the areas prone to landslides.
Wereh said the same two lane standard asphalt roads would be extended to other highways so that every road is upgraded to the same two-lane asphalt standard.
He said all the roads and bridges have deteriorated over the years and the department spent K3.3bil from 2012-2018.
“It is important that we remain committed to long-term programme to gradually alleviate the growing pressures and threats from ageing bridge and road infrastructures,” he said.
Wereh said 27 of the bridges in the country had either been replaced or are undergoing construction at a total cost of K200 million.
He said the only best roads so far in the country are the Buluminski Highway in New Ireland and the Enga Highway, apart from Port Moresby and the Lae city roads.