People still using outdated toilet system, Wobiro says

 THE people of Daru, Western, are resigned to using the outdated “black bucket” toilet pan system until the PNG Sustainable Development Programme projects resume, Governor Ati Wobiro says.

He said PNGSDP had been rehabilitating and expanding Daru’s water and sewerage systems at a cost of K52 million until last October. 

All PNGSDP projects in Western were stopped when the Government took over the company. They included the: 

• Rehabilitation and expansion of the Daru water and sewerage systems;
• PNGSDP’s scholarship schemes for promising Western students;
• school classrooms and teachers’ housing aid posts and health workers’ housing;
• church-based health and education programmes;
• village power and water supplies;
• the Western rubber wealth-creation scheme, and,
• Transport infrastructure like roads, bridges and jetties.

Wobiro said  the provincial government had hired a contractor to collect toilet pans. “We’ve started collection of toilet pans,” he said. “For a long time, people were just burying their wastes in their backyard.

“When it rains, and Daru is below the water level, everything comes up.”