Highlands Highway blocked

ANGRY and frustrated landowners have blocked off 20km of the Highlands Highway – cutting off all traffic and jeopardising commercial transport, The National reports.

The illegal roadblocks start from Wara Simbu up to Chuave, bordering Eastern Highlands.

Aggrieved landowners and claimants gathering for a meeting with Chimbu police commander Supt Joseph Tondop at the Dumun section of the Highlands Highway yesterday. The people had blocked the highway over unsettled highway rehabilitation payments, totalling K67.8 million, owed to them by the national government. 

The landowners living along the highway showed their frustrations after the government failed to settle K67.8 million in outstanding payment under the Highlands Highway rehabilitation programme.

People from Western Highlands, Enga and Southern Highlands, who had planned to travel to Goroka, Lae and Madang, were forced to postpone their trips yesterday morning in Mt Hagen after hearing word of the roadblocks.

Trucks based in the three provinces and laden with tea, coffee and other agricultural products for export and local markets in coastal provinces were stranded in Mt Hagen.

Those in Kundiawa with cargo bound for Lae were stranded in Goroka.

Business houses in Western Highlands said they would be severely affected if the problem prolonged.

Trucking companies said no goods would be transported to the upper highlands region until the highway was fully cleared.

Mt Hagen’s Waghi Valley Transport operations manager Allen Benette said the company had grounded all its trucks bound for Mt Hagen and Goroka.

“There would be no transport until the road is free and the situation is under control. I have spoken to Chimbu police commander Joseph Tondop, who assured me that the road would be cleared by midday today (yesterday),” he said.

Members of the police force in Chimbu, led by Tondop, clearing the felled trees using chainsaws at the Dumun section of the Highlands Highway

Mt Hagen’s Kutubu Transport operations manager Clement Tarere said six trucks were sitting idle while thousands of kina worth of business had gone down the drain.

“Even though we are affected, the landowners also had a point to put across and the relevant authorities have to address it quickly, like they did in other parts of the highlands,” he said.

Lae’s Mapi Transport operations supervisor Michael Arut said they had yet to allow any transport operations but a few trucks, with dry goods bound for wholesale in Southern Highlands, were stranded in Goroka.

He said fuel supplies and other materials for the mining areas were also affected