LLG asks Zibe for report

By GABRIEL LAHOC
COUNCIL wards numbering 27 in the Wampar local level government area want Huon Gulf MP Sasa Zibe to produce the results of an independent assessment of the Watut and Markham rivers as he promised last year.
A spokesman for the councillors, Douglas Gedisa, from Ward five in the Markham Bridge area, said the livelihoods of thousands of people using the Watut River, which joins the Markham River, was being affected as people were not using the water out of fear of contracting waterborne diseases.
During a meeting at the Lae International Hotel where the assessment reports on the Watut River study were discussed to find out if the river was being affected by mining activity upstream, the councillors said Zibe had promised to bring in a German scientist attached with the Evangelical Lutheran church to carry out an independent study.
“He said this German scientist will study and confirm if the rivers were contaminated,” Gedisa said.
“But we have come to realise that this commitment has taken too long and frustration has built up because that was the same assurance we gave to our people.”
He said the concerned communities were Lower Watut villages and the Wampar LLG villages of Zifasing, Gabensis, Munum, Nasuampum, Wampit, Mare, Labu-Butu, Labu-Miti and Labu-Tale villages.
Gedisa said the people should not be made to wait in suspense until the next general election and that Zibe should explain to the people whether the assessment and their results would be made public.