Manus receives K7mil for road construction

PRIME Minister James Marape gave K7 million to the Manus government during his visit to the province on Sunday for road construction.
The road will run from Lorengau to the west coast.
Marape said building the road would be costly and work would be done “one kilometre at a time.”
“Development has been focused on Port Moresby when other provinces needed it. Unlike Manus, my own electorate still does not have sealed roads despite being the host of oil and gas projects,” he said.
“This country has all the resources in the world yet poverty, lack of education, lack of employment and lack of meaningful engagement are rife.
“Our fish is stolen through illegal fishing, our logs harvested but we are still receiving a small percentage of the proceeds from the sale of round logs. And we are not making as much revenue as we would expect from selling oil, gas, gold and copper.”
Marape will be meeting stakeholders in the logging industry this week to discuss processing timber in the country.
“I understand that this may upset owners of logging businesses but it is time to start downstream processing,” he said.