Salamaua people want road link with Lae

By CLEMENT KAUPA
SALAMAUA people on the Morobe south coast want a road link with Lae to open-up economic opportunities for them.
They say they have been denied access to the markets in Lae and elsewhere for their abundant forest, agriculture and marine resources because of their isolation.   
The only access they have to Lae is by sea, which is normally a 45 minute boat ride to the industrial city.
But the villagers say the boat ride costs K60 for a round trip, which is an exorbitant fare for any rural subsistence dweller. This excludes charges for heavy cargo transported back to Salamaua from Lae.
This could be higher or lower for different communities along the coastline, depending on their respective distances to the port of Lae.
“We have heard they are building ring roads for places in the Wau-Bulolo areas this year but they have not mentioned a road for us,” Salamaua ward councillor John Hari, complained.
“We were the first to see the white man and the first station for this province was built on our land but we still do not have a road leading out of here.”
He said from newspapers reports that local Huon-Gulf MP Ross Seymour had bought some roadworks machinery and he was hoping that a road project would be considered to link Salamaua to Lae.
However, Hari’s sentiments were not shared by the expatriate community on the old colonial part of Salamaua Point.
“We don’t need a road here,” declared prominent Lae businessman and long-serving president of the Lae show society Mike Quinn.
“It will only open this place to outsiders and bad influences. We don’t want that,” Quinn said at his residence on Salamaua, known locally as the “White House”.
Other expatriates with residences there concurred with Quinn, unanimously agreeing that a road link with Lae was a bad idea.
“Salamaua is a very special place in PNG because of its isolation and we don’t want to destroy that,” Quinn added.