Morobe locals to get road

 By CLEMENT KAUPA

A REMOTE community in the rugged Nawae Mountains, in Morobe, will have an access road reopened after years of back-breaking struggle to get their produce to Lae markets. 

Governor Kelly Naru marked last Thursday at Boana station the start of a K800,000 rehabilitation work to the road by contractor, Ganing Construction.

The Boana-Nambut section is part of a ring road that has two entry points – one at Erap, on the Highlands Highway, and the other at Bumayong, on the periphery of the capital city, Lae. 

“You deserve better,” Naru told the people who had been struggling for years to get their coffee to Boana station.

Naru said while most parts of PNG were keeping pace with the world in the past three decades, time had stood still for the mountain people of Wain-Erap local level government.

Though blessed with the highest graded coffee at 83% (New Zealand standard), bad road conditions restrict the quantity that can be carried on the shoulder to reach the coffee markets in Lae. 

Naru gave the rural coffee association Neknasi K400,000 to construct a coffee mill at Erap.

Local MP Siniwin Gisuate had funded K100,000 of a K300,000 pledge and the PNG Sustainable Development Programme injected K500,000 for the construction to be launched next week.