By Alice Osii
A local business man and cocoa farmer at Yankok in the Nuku District of West Sepik said bad road conditions in the Province has affected people doing businesses in the rural areas of West Sepik.
Matthew Suni, said he struggled for three days and nights just to reach Vanimo to sell his cocoa produce last month.
Suni said the deteriorating road conditions had worsened in the recent months making it impossible for vehicle owners and business owners in Nuku, Lumi and some from as far as Maprik in East Sepik to travel in to Vanimo to conduct their weekly business runs.
He said earlier this month, he transported 23 bags of cocoa to sell at the newly opened cocoa depot in Vanimo but had to spend three nights and days on the road and arrived on a Tuesday at 3am.
Suni said cocoa farmers in Lumi and Nuku wanted to bring their produce to Wewak to sell at the Cocoa Depot there but they cannot make it because of a recent landslip at the Mai junction.
“I do not think we will return back to Vanimo to conduct any more businesses because the road condition just would allow us,” Suni said.
“I am calling on our four MP’s and the Governor of West Sepik to look into fixing our feeder and Provincial Road to allow access to rural businesses individuals to travel in the Provincial Headquarters and do business there so that we can bring revenue back into our Province,” he added.
Suni said this was his first truck load of cocoa beans to Vanimo to sell at the newly built depot because they wanted to increase the revenue of West Sepik Province after they had been supplying metric tons of cocoa to East Sepik.
“These bad road conditions his affecting those of us who has loans with the bank and couldn’t pay because there is little to no way for us to transport our produce or travel to Wewak or Vanimo to restock our trade stores and pay our bills,” Suni said.
Meanwhile, other travelers and vehicle owners are also calling on the respective District Development Authorities, as well as the Provincial Executive Council and their Open MP’s and Governor to assist in maintaining the roads from Nuku to Lumi, Lumi to Aitape and Aitape to Vanimo to allow smooth passage of people wanting to conduct business to and from.
People wanting to travel from Nuku and Lumi to Vanimo cannot do so by road and they had to transit at Serra village and then get on a boat from there to Vanimo and it is very costly they said.
A traveler said they spent K150.00 per person from Nuku to Serra by Vehicle and then another K150.00 from Serra to Vanimo whereas travelling directly by road will cost them K200.00 per person.
