K72,000 given in WHP compo

By JAMES APA GUMUNO
THE Pangka Tembkapi clan of the Jika Anda Pant tribe, in the Hagen Central district, Western Highlands, set a new record after they paid bel kol and final compensation in a one package last Friday –  three weeks after a fatal road accident.
They paid K72,000, 50 pigs, two goats, a cow, a cassowary and a possum to the Jika Komapi clan after a 15-seater bus owned by a Pangka Tembkapi man ran off the road at the Kamunamur betelnut market on May 19 and killed Shane Domes, a 3-year-old boy from Gorr Village.
The Tembkapi clansmen compensated four other people who were injured by the bus with K12,000 and a pig each.
They then compensated the owner of a house at the betelnut market that the bus had hit with K3,000 and a pig.
During the compensation ceremony held at Kopgolom village, deputy governor Wai Rapa told the people to do away with an excessive compensation demands and payments.
He said they were putting too much pressure on the owners of vehicles and clansmen with excessive compensation demands even though they did not mean to kill or injure people.
Rapa said K10,000 and 10 pigs must be paid as compensation for such fatal accidents in WHP.
WHP law and order chairman David Maip commended the Pangka Tembkapi clan for paying the compensation to the relatives of the deceased and those injured within a short a time to maintain peace in the community.