No money for repairs

 THE National Roads Authority (NRA) is unable to undertake any significant improvement work for national highways due to lack of maintenance funding from the government despite budget submissions and requests.

NRA chief executive Ponege Poya said that following public outcry over the poor condition of the Lae-Bulolo highway in Morobe.

Poya said only temporary maintenance work would be carried out for the short term to improve the surface while awaiting funding for proper repairs and upgrading.

The gazetted NRA section for maintenance and upkeeping is 107km from 9-Mile turn-off in Lae to the turn-off at Bulolo airport.

Poya said that NRA was aware of the poor condition of the road but was unable to undertake any significant improvement due to no maintenance funding support from the Government.

“Our revenue from the K0.04 fuel levy amounts to K14-K20 million in any given year and considering the 2000-plus kilometres of road sections gazetted for us to maintain – that money is insufficient to adequately address the backlog of maintenance needs not only in Bulolo but all other national roads,” Poya said.

“Considering such situation where the road condition was deteriorating fast and funding was not available, in June 2013 NRA handed the road section back to Department of Works to improve the current condition to a maintainable condition whereby we can easily maintain.

“We are aware that DoW has had no serious works programme on this road but I’m sad to say that we are not in any better position financially to satisfactorily address the maintenance issues unless funding support from government is forth-coming.

Last week, Morobe provincial works manager Kingsford Kasen said the responsibility to maintain the Bulolo highway was transferred to NRA from DoW, which undertook maintenance work on certain road portions where AusAID funding was involved.

Poya said that following public complaints over the state of Bulolo highway, NRA had discussed the issue with DoW on the need to address the maintenance of the road.

“At the moment, only DoW may be in a better position to attend to the current issues since they not only receive maintenance funding from the government but manage the aid and tax credit programmes”.

“In short, NRA has no money to attend to the maintenance needs of Bulolo-Wau Highway due to lack of government support on our work programme,” Poya said.