The Wapenamanda Open Electorate is known for its highest yield of dry coffee beans as the district predominantly grows coffee making it the top coffee growing District in Enga Province.
Wapenamanda Open MP and Vice Minister for Works and Highways, Miki Kaeok is prioritizing the revival of coffee cultivation throughout the district with plans to open up the Wapenamanda Coffee Factory that will buy dried coffee beans using standard world market prices per kilogram and directly export to overseas coffee markets simultaneously.
With the upgrade and construction of the Wapenamanda (Mambisanda) to Lower Lai (Tupokores) road project opening up this coffee growing valley, most coffee growers will now be able to bring their dried coffee beans to existing markets.
The road access is now enabling the people to cultivate and grow more coffee trees which hasn’t been happening for the past decade due to road inaccessibility.
Vice Minister Kaeok plans to work with local ward Councillors to establish coffee nurseries so young coffee trees can be evenly distributed to villages throughout the district.
The Wapenamanda District Development Authority (WDDA) has already engaged a technical coffee expert who previously worked with the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) to practically visit villages to identify potential areas of setting up coffee nurseries, that will boost coffee cultivation and eventually production into direct export of dry coffee beans in the near future.
Vice Minister Kaeok urged his people to refrain from trouble and actively participate in rural economic empowerment initiatives that the WDDA is spearheading through the district’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) policy currently being rolled out.
Kaeok encouraged his people to cultivate and grow coffee as the SME policy will support them to realise their economic potentials alongside others who tend to start up different forms of businesses, as the WDDA will lend seed capital to those who are registered, trained and have an operating SME Business account.
Vice Minister Kaeok who first won in the 2002 elections with his reelection in 2007 is determined to continue to assist the rural majority after being out of political power for the last decade.
Kaeok ousted former MP Rimbink Pato who previously served the people for the past 10 years in the recent 2022 National General Elections.
