Wereh is right, roads create wealth

“WEALTH does not create roads but roads create wealth” is a saying that Department of Works (DoW) Secretary David Wereh strictly abides by.
Since assuming this key position several years ago, Wereh has been instrumental in pushing the O’Neill Government’s agenda on massive road infrastructure development throughout Papua New Guinea.
Although the DoW has had the benefit of very large budget allocations for infrastructure development, Wereh has not lost focus on his key objective to deliver these impact projects on time and within budget.
Wereh has faced many challenges, not least of them the forces of nature.
Indeed, Mother Nature has a way of testing man’s engineering genius and engineers like Wereh and his high impact projects director John Kaio will attest to that.
Irrespective of how much money or how many man-hours and technical know-how have been spent on a project, even the slightest leakage
of water could ultimately spell disaster.
Hundreds of millions of kina have been spent on roads, bridges and other infrastructure over the years but they are constantly put to test by the force of nature.
The country’s wet season has routinely tested the workmanship of our engineers in the roads and bridges. Rains and floods continue to cause widespread damage throughout the country.
Some of the destroyed or damaged infrastructure may not have been in the news because they are in remote locations.
But when very important infrastructure such as the Highlands Highway, Ramu (Lae – Madang) Highway and other major roads are affected, there bound to be panic. These are very vital economic road links which cannot remain closed for even a few days.
Although DoW has used whatever funding at its disposal to fix the damages along these roads, its actions are at best like band-aid solutions. The department has done its best over the years to provide what have been temporary repairs on roads.
Wereh is adamant that permanent re-designing and construction is necessary to ensure our roads and bridges do not continue to crumple under the forces of nature.
A case in point is the Ramu Highway, which was severely affected by heavy rains and floods earlier this year. This highway needs to re-engineered and constructed.
A significant amount of money is spent on this highway every year but because of the geography (or geology) of the road corridor, there have been many landslips and washed out sections.
DoW has copped quite a lot of flak for its handling of emergency road works during natural disasters but Wereh maintains that they are doing their best to keep the roads open for use.
There have been concerns that the Government should provide more funding for the DoW to carry out timely maintenance work in the event of natural disasters.  Hence, a continuing disaster response fund would enable the department to effectively attend to situations like what has happened along Highlands Highway.
In the absence of such funding, the Government through the Finance and Treasury departments must also be willing to expedite any funding request from DoW to undertake maintenance work on vital national infrastructure as and when it is required.
As it is, this seems not to be the case.  We understand that requests by the department for immediate funding from the Finance and Treasury departments have not been treated with the urgency they deserve.
We understand also that DoW was given only half of what it has requested in its budget submission earlier this year for road maintenance.
There has already been too much concentrated on the developing infrastructure in the main urban centres and it is now time to move resources to the rural areas.
Port Moresby, Lae and Mt Hagen have had a lot of money spent on roads and other infrastructure already.
Such rapid development has also had an unfortunate social cost as well.  Many families and small business have been made to give way for such development.
In the National Capital District, the major road works have already forced settlers out and cut through residential and business premises.
Among those affected by these new road constructions in the city was a 27-year-old woman living with disabilities.
Her specially-built two bedroom house had to be removed for the new road that will link Konedobu with Tokarara.