Programme to transform PNG

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA
POLITICS should not kill a country-changing initiative, says Department of Works and Highways secretary David Wereh.
“It is too big for pettiness. It is too important for regionalism.
“It is the only impact project by the Government in half a century of nationhood that impacts the majority of Papua New Guineans.
“Only Connect PNG will support our society; only Connect PNG will connect the unconnected, reach the untouched and bring out the raw talent and resources of a land blessed by Almighty God.”
Wereh is a career public servant who has held the position across two administrations – one-and-half term under Peter O’Neill and two terms under James Marape.
Connect PNG is his baby and it is easy to see the passion once you appreciate the design.
A road along the entire spine of the island of New Guinea from Merauke in Indonesia to East Cape in Milne Bay; and one connecting all maritime provinces from West Sepik through Madang, Morobe, Northern, Milne Bay, Central, Gulf and Western; another straddling the Owen Stanley, connecting the northern half of the mainland to the southern half, another connecting East and West New Britain and a north-to-south highway punching through the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
It will release the raw potential of the highlands and lowlands, the river valleys and the islands to realise the goals of the medium-term development programme IV (MTDP IV) and Vision 2050.
Unless you have walked the Nimagir from Ambullua in Jiwaka to Kerowagi in Chimbu or carried coffee bags through Kaupena, Menyamya, Kaintiba, Marawaka, and Telefomin, you would little appreciate the importance of vehicular traffic. But some 89 per cent of the people know it because they live it.
It was a teary moment towards the end of last year when Ipwenz Constructions punched through the Hindenburg Wall, previously deemed impassable, and road construction equipment rolled into a village in West Sepik, connecting Tabubil to Telefomin for the first time.
Grown man and women jumped with glee, wept and frolicked in the mud along with their children.
It was a sight to melt the sternest of hearts.
Much has been said about PNG becoming the food bowl of Cceania.
The fertile land is here. Experienced farmers abound throughout the length and breadth of PNG with seed and tool. They await a road to connect farm to end-user.
A properly developed and sustained road network in PNG will contribute significantly towards providing that enabling environment to grow the economy of the country.
Works and Highways Minister Solan Mirisim reported to Parliament recently that the current network is estimated to carry 89 per cent of all nationwide passenger and freight traffic and ensures connectivity between transport modes.
The most important roads consist of the 7,840km national road network (NRN) that connects major cities and economic growth centres to markets, seaports and airports.
Wereh says the network is crucial to PNG’s social and economic development and to the delivery of services to population centres.
“Funding, however, has not kept pace with the growing cost of maintenance. Decades of minimal maintenance has seen the condition of the national road network decline steadily. The maintenance backlog has grown to a stage where we must start investing properly in roads, because business-as-usual will see the steady loss of our road infrastructure and the inevitable collapse of the national road network.”
Mirisim said: “The Government is 100 per cent focused on increasing road access and connectivity by upgrading, expanding, developing and maintaining the existing 16,000km of roads as well as constructing the major missing link roads of 1,800m.
“Only in this way will we, as a nation, connect the unconnected, reach the unreached, and unlock the economic potential in the landlocked regions identified in Vision 2050.”
The Australian government supported the transport sector support programme (TSSP) founded in 2012, with a maintenance backlog of K45 billion.
Secretary Wereh wants to cut wastage by getting out of the “build-neglect-and-rebuild” cycle that has been the practice over the past decades and introduce preventative maintenance
Programmes to extend the life of our roads to the full 20-to-25 years of useful service.
The Connect PNG 2020-40 strategy promotes whole lifecycle maintenance with long-term performance-based contracting as its main procurement model whilst at the time rebuild to higher standard sections that have failed below the minimum highway criteria.
It adopts a network and evidence-based investment planning with a “maintenance first” policy as the guiding principle, whilst advocating for improved road standards to keep up with increasing traffic volumes and the effects of climate change.
The strategy will depend on reliable and adequate multi-year funding stream to be successful in bringing the national road network back to 50 per cent “good” and 50 per cent “fair” condition level, within the 20-years period.
Wereh said: “Good roads will reduce the cost of road transportation, reducing the cost of travel, works, goods and services around the country and promotes business, employment, development and reduces poverty.
The Connect PNG programme was developed in its present form in 2019 to deal with the threats of growing deferred maintenance backlog and, at the same time, meet the country’s future demands for road transport infrastructure.
“It is a long-term vision,” Minister Mirisim told Parliament, “to connect the entire country with 100 per cent road connectivity by 2040”.
However, the network can only be fit for purpose if funding is at appropriate levels and delivered with this network approach.
The funding for 2020-23 funding period was an estimated K6.402 billion but the actual budget appropriation was K4.53 billion, a shortfall of K2.4 billion.
To ensure sustainability, the 20-year programme is supported by a funding an allocation of 5.6 per cent (K1.2 billion) of the annual budget as guaranteed by law in the Connect PNG Funding Act.
And this brings us to the political threat which Wereh speaks of.
It is said that flies and vultures are immediately attracted to carrion. A lot of money is like carrion to greedy people of every description.
The Connect PNG programme is a multi-year multi-billion-kina project.
It will tempt the tempt-able and attract those who profit by dishonest means.
Such a suggestion has been made by former prime minister Peter O’Neill recently in a media statement.
O’Neill produced a list naming companies and other details suggesting they had been paid sums in the billions of kina and made insinuations that directors of some of these companies were related to people in high places in government, including the prime minister.
He suggested the contracts were unfairly distributed and hugely inflated.
Both Minister Mirisim and Prime Minister Marape have denied these insinuations inside and outside of Parliament.
The programme now hangs on a precipice. Beneath, like many other good ideas since Independence, lies the dark abyss of oblivion. Beyond – a grim future.
And this, God forbid, mustn’t happen.
Politics must not be allowed to demonise grand ideas.
Indeed, O’Neill himself told Parliament last week that Connect PNG was a great idea and must be supported.
Why ever not? He initiated the programme in the first instance.
But O’Neill also has a point. Corruption, nepotism, cronyism and their entire ilk must never be allowed near grand ideas and their implementation schedules.
For the present the government priority programmes include:

• IMPROVING and upgrading of the 4,220km of 16 priority highways to a two-lane standard highway;
• EXPANSION of 1,000km of new missing link roads to connect 17 per cent (1.7 million people);
• IMPROVING rural roads to the DoW&H rural road standard to increase rural accessibility by about 60 per cent; and,
• DELIVER 4,000m of national and provincial bridge infrastructure.

Wereh said work is in progress to separate implementation from funding arrangements.
This would mean that programme oversight, monitoring, management and implementation is separated and parked with say, the DoW&H, while funding is resident in another government entity.
That is the right direction.
Call it by whatever name that suits the administration of the day but the only thing that matters is the idea – the idea of connecting PNG.
Connect PNG must stay. And it must grow.
And when that happens, PNG will have come of age.