In August 2019, our team visited Cloudy Bay LLG; in the beginning of that same year, the Cloudy Bay LLG in Abau District experienced monsoon rains that deteriorated four kilometers of road from Kapari village to Kupiano Junction.
Public motor vehicles would wait on one end of the four kilometer stretch to pick up passengers travelling to Port Moresby while two PMV’s waited on the Kapari side to transport passengers to Moreguina Station and onwards.
Due to limited PMV’s and usual agricultural produce being unable to be transported to Kupiano and Port Moresby, locals have little to no money at all to even catch the already loaded vehicles. People walked for hours and sometimes, days to reach their villages.
The worst affected were teachers who were annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t buy store goods to bring back to their families.
During a recent visit on Tuesday (January 21), our crew has seen that the section of road has been somewhat fixed as back-filling takes place by local contractor Lama Constructions.
Back-filling, meaning the filling up of large mud pools, allowing vehicles and PMV’s to access services outside of Cloudy Bay. Vital supply of diesel for generators as electricity has been non-existent since 1999 and store goods. Currently there are 4 Chinese run stores in Cloudy Bay, 3 are located at Moreguina Station.
We met PMV owner, Mevin Harua, who says while the road is accessible; it needs a long term solution.
Harau, thanking the local member for putting funds aside to have the road fixed.
The roads are accessible, but far from its glory days in the 90’s when nearly all roads from Kupiano to Cloudy Bay were sealed. Neglect over two decades the road no longer reaches Cloudy Bay and Magrita station.
Moreguina Health Centre officer in charge, Ravu Kapa, says while they are thankful for the improvement of road condition. There is a dire need for feeder roads to be maintained for the Health Centre to carry out their Immunization program.
By Adelaide Sirox Kari – EMTV News – Port Moresby
