Lae businessman urges committee to consider options in riot investigation

By GABRIEL LAHOC
AN entrepreneur in Lae, Morobe, who lost his investment during the ethnic violence between Highlanders and Morobeans says authorities must cover all areas when investigating with the problem.
Arnold Damba from Gembogl, Chimbu, wants the law and order committee to find the people responsible for the damage caused to the many properties worth millions of kina.
He said owners of property like him were genuine citizens who bought leased land and developed their businesses and in the process helped locals and the government as service providers.
Damba, an advocate of self-reliance and sustainable living, started a small business operation in Chimbu concentrating on fresh vegetables.
He was involved with local farmers by transporting their produce to bigger markets and expanded from being a farmer to buying from farmers in bulk.
Affected by the poor transport infrastructure in the Highlands region, Damba and his family moved to Lae in 2004, where he lived in rented rooms in settlements
for five years.
Since he had contacts with major supermarkets in Lae, he re-launched his plan to buy fresh vegetables from the Lae main market.
His operations involved preparing, trimming, packing and reselling the produce to the bigger supermarkets, and in the process helped farmers and middlemen establish markets in Port Moresby.
His business clients were farmers from the Highlands region as well as the rural areas of Morobe, from Bumayong, Situm, Markham, Bukawa, Nadzab and Zenag, in Bulolo district.
In 2008, he acquired a portion of land from Noah Minderi, a traditional landowner from the Wati clan of Kamkumung, and built his family home and business operations base.
The property was worth over K30,000 and had assets worth over K20,000.
But those and three vehicles were burnt to ashes by Morobeans who rampaged and destroyed properties in the Back Road area.
Damba and his family, like the other affected Highlanders who were displaced by that uprising, now have nothing and are now living in makeshift shelters and camps around Lae.