Highlands Highway (Okuk) in dire straits

By Peter Korugl

The Highlands Highway that serves as a vital transport link for the three million people living in Highlands is in such disrepair that locals claim it has become a death trap, while businesses say they will have to shut down if the road is not repaired.

The road connects the Highlands region, and is home to the country’s K500 million a year coffee and K200 million a year tea industries, organically grown vegetables, the Porgera gold mine which is ranked the world’s fourth largest gold mine, the Kutubu oil and gas projects and the country’s biggest liquefied natural gas project, under construction at present.

Life for the inhabitants and businesses have taken a battering for a very long time, but it has been really bad in the last decade due to the deteriorating condition of the highway, built in the 1970s through rugged mountainous terrain. “Life in the Highlands, as we know it now, depends on the highway.

When we have a blockage, all supplies to the Highlands are cut off, store goods run out, medical supplies run low, schools go without supplies — this road is our lifeline,” said Elizabeth Waugla. Waugla, a mother of seven lives in Chimbu, and she travels to Lae, located about 300km away from where she lives, to visit her husband and three children monthly. PMV driver like John Muglua says travelling on the highway is an ordeal.

“Your body aches all over at the end of the day,” Muglua said. Motorists say there are two to three roadblocks per week and the situation is particularly bad during the wet season, which starts in September to January each year. The region is served by airports, but the high cost of airfares means most people prefer to go by road. The 600km highway, which for the most part is no more than a two-lane road, connects a number of PNG’s major towns and serves as an essential link to the coastal ports of Lae and Madang.

But frequent landslides and washouts mean parts of the highway are often impassable and accidents are frequent. Twenty-two deaths and countless injuries were reported between February and March this year. Crime on the highway has been another concern, with trucking firms losing cargo from their trucks that break down on the road and armed robberies. Businesses that depend on the highway to survive are concerned about the current state of the road.

WR TK Carpenters and Company, PNG’s leading tea and coffee producer, may cease operations because of the state of the highway, as they are unable to deliver their produce to markets as well as bring in inputs for their estates. “If we don’t have the ability to market our produce and generate revenue or get our inputs like fuel and fertilizer for our plantations, we will be forced to shut down, and that will be within weeks,” Ramesh Vasudevan, general manager, said.

A study done by the National Research Institute in 2007 found that trucking firms lose more than K27 million a year to crime, wear and tear on vehicles as well as failure to meet contractual obligations. “This will certainly go up. If the Government does not think we need the highway, then shut it down, forget PNG and let’s all go home,” Jacob Luke, managing director of Mapai Transport said.

Public transport operators claim their cost has shot up to K600 per week while trucking firms were forced to spend up to K7000 more per trip than three years ago. The coffee industry has voiced its concerns too. “We are penalised. We get less money for our coffee because the markets have to look elsewhere to buy substitutes for PNG coffee,” said Jerry Kapka, managing director of Kongo Coffee Limited.

Experts say it would take about K2.4 billion to rebuild the highway while an annual budget of K51 million would be needed for year-round maintenance. “The highway, as it is today, will cost up to K3 million per kilometer to bring it up to a fully serviced road,” Godfrid Umba, a leading civil engineer said. Mr Umba said the K30 million allocated by the National Government was not enough.

The Department of Works, the state agent that takes care of roads in PNG, says the country’s 9000km road network needs K3.6 billion over the next three years for repairs. The Department of Works says repairs to existing 9000km roads as priority. There is a backlog of maintenance of K1.2 billion per year for the next three years and a continuous program of maintenance of K9 million thence,” said Secretary Joel Luma.

Nape’s undemocratic parliament equals Somare’s absolute power

By Sam Basil*

The National Parliament Speaker Hon. Jeffery Nape has eroded the spirit of democracy for three consecutive years as the speaker of this eight parliament and continues to do.

Since becoming a member of this eight parliament I was given a copy of the constitution the edited version July, 2007 and started browsing through the speakers role and responsibilities when I first started to realise the unprofessional and undemocratic conducts that he posses.

The constitution stated clearly in Section 108 (1) that, The Speaker is responsible, subject to and in accordance with the Constitutional Laws, the Acts of Parliament and the Standing Orders of the Parliament, for upholding the dignity of the Parliament, maintaining order in it, regulating its proceedings and administering its affairs, and for controlling the precincts of the Parliament as defined by or under an Act of the Parliament.

The Speaker Hon. Jeffery Nape’s decisions and actions so far on the floor of Parliament have clearly shown that he is irresponsible and his conducts were not subjected to as in accordance with the Constitutional Laws, the Act of Parliament and the Standing Orders of the Parliament. Simply there is no more democratic process in the proceedings of parliament.

In the last sitting of Parliament the speaker;

A) Failed to entertain the motion of no confidence notice which was officially handed to the speaker’s office at 0930hrs on the 21.07.10.

B) Failed to entertain the Noes call by the opposition followed by division call which was seconded against the leader of government business who proposed that the parliament at its rising be adjourned till November 16 2010.

C) Failed yet again to entertain the Noes call by the opposition followed by division call which was seconded against the leader of government business who proposed again that the parliament is now adjourned until November 16 2010.

Surprisingly the parliament clerk Mr Don Pandan has excluded the division calls from the copies of Hansard distributed a week after the session. The National Parliament clerk has also failed his constitutional duties to properly advice the speaker to act in accordance with the constitutional laws, the Acts of Parliament and the Standing Orders of the Parliament and he must also be referred to the Ombudsman Commission.

We have heard that during the intense lobbying two very influential government MPs spent three hours with the speaker. The speaker’s undemocratic rulings on the floor that week also raises many questions regarding the integrity of the chair.

Is the speaker above the law? Why haven’t the relevant authorities stepped in to address all the corruption claims against the speaker including his undemocratic conduct on the chair beginning from the 7th and into this 8th Parliament?

If the speaker is clearly above the law then he can be termed as the most powerful mp on the floor which means that if he decides to market his rulings to the highest bidder then he can break all the laws under the sun to do so.

Last week denial of the opposition’s rights to call for the division has seen the speaker’s office denying the rights of almost 3 million people that those 45 members of parliament represent in the opposition. If the speaker of the National Parliament is marketing his rulings on the floor then he must come clear to the 6.5m people of this nation.

Maybe it is time now for the ordinary people to directly vote a speaker of Parliament into office who can be independent from political influences the candidates must go through a series of stringent screening process and criteria with educational qualifications and most importantly ex convict and criminals should be excluded from day one.

I will also take to the ordinary grassroots people to explain the speaker’s conducts on the floor while he will be called to open forums to explain his undemocratic conducts there is no hope anymore for us the elected MPs to exercise our rights and freedom on the floor on behalf of our people.

*Basil is the Member for Wau/Bulolo Open Electorate in the Morobe Province and the deputy leader of the People's Progress Party (PPP) which is in the Opposition at the Papua New Guinea National Parliament.

Life and Wealth - Not the Same Thing

Be on your guard against all kinds of greed - Luke 12:15

As people who live on a planet with such an immense resources, it's easy to cringe when hearing biblical texts warning against greed and the evils of wealth. For those living in comfort, if not excess, todays gospel reading can feel threatening; as though Jesus wants to take away comfortable lifestyles.

It's easy to think that Jesus is judging us - unless one takes a closer look at this passage from Luke's gospel (12:13-21). Jesus isn't judging, and he doesn't want to take anything from us.Quite the contrary, actually. Jesus came to give us something. He came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. As sinners, though, we look to wealth to give us life; we look to status to give us life; we look to 'stuff' to give us life; we look to any number of things to give us what only can provide.

In this gospel text Jesus is not judging us. He is graciously providing us with the one true source of life: a living God who comes to us imparting gifts of grace and mercy. Anything less is a poor substitute at best; at worst it simply idolatry.

Rather than commanding us to renounce material possessions this parable warns us against confusing wealth with life. God desires life and well-being for all of God's beloved children. But there is an economy of mercy to be struggled with, namely, that this life and well-being is for both the haves and the have-nots.

So to be given abundance in a world with so much need, what does being 'rich toward God' (Luke 12:21) looks like? That is for each of us to decide. The one who came to give us life simply bids us "Do not worry..."(Luke 12:22).