Secretary for Works & Highways David Wereh have urged civil engineers to build roads that will build our economy, connecting our people to have accessibility to markets and basic government goods and services.
He told the engineers in a training workshop on Tuesday held at Tuna Bay Resort in Port Moresby.
He also reminded them about a saying in rural parts of Papua New Guinea that “you give me the road and forget about me, I will look after myself” that the Department wanted to create and impart.
Out of this training workshop DoWH is going to decentralized functional powers to field managers who are secretary’s delegates in all the 21 provincial and regional office at the sub-national level and the headquarters will only monitor the accountability aspects of the project implementation in as far as the business of building roads and bridges is concerned.
The three days intensive training workshop focuses on project delivery structure that includes planning, procurement and operations for the engineers and field operations managers throughout Papua New Guinea.
Wereh said the organization have been entrusted by the Government with the biggest task to build roads into big economic zones development under the current regime.
“The DoWH Connect PNG investment plan stands at K20 billion that will run for 20 years to build additional 16km of road network to connect the country by 2040.”
“Connect PNG program will run for 20 years so today we have to set the standards because we have that opportunity to contribute in building roads and bridges and connect the unconnected and reach the unreachable to put a smile on our rural people face who have not seen a road link since independence.
“This Marape-Rosso flagship policy main objective is to connect the country with better roads and the rural population look after themselves to bring this country into a middle - income economy by 2030,” he added.