Recognizing the need to upgrade vital road links in Papua New Guinea, the World Bank is financing a US$29 million road maintenance project to seal the Hiritano Highway which connects the Gulf Province and the PNG capital, Port Moresby.
According to the PNG Prime Minister, James Marape, the World Bank will fund 70% of the cost of sealing the 126km road while the Government of PNG will inject the remaining 30%.
The Hiritano Highway is one of the country’s core economic corridors and one of the thirteen ‘Core Priority Roads’ identified in the PNG Department of Works and Implementation’s 2018 National Road Network Strategy.
Noro Rabefaniraka, World Bank Senior Transport Specialist, East Asia & Pacific, stressed that the importance of the road has become crucial following the formal commitment to proceed with the development of the Papua LNG onshore gas project located in the Gulf, approx. 120 km inland from Kerema (the Gulf Province capital).
“The referred work is also expected to contribute to improvement of local economic activities and road safety,” Rabefaniraka said.
She added that the road work had already been included in an existing World Bank-funded Transport project, the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Project phase 2 (RMRP II) which will end in April 2023.
The same project, RMRPII, is also supporting similar works (upgrading of seal) on the 26km road from Bogia Station to Awar in Madang Province.
“In parallel, the World Bank is currently supporting the preparation of the PNG Resilient Transport Project to upgrade sections of the Ramu Highway in Madang Province. Safeguards assessments and Field Investigations are about to commence on this project under preparation,” Rabefaniraka added.
For more than two decades, the World Bank worked closely with PNG’s Department of Works and Implementation and donor agencies to improve the national road network in PNG. The donors strongly promote the use of long-term performance-based maintenance contracts to protect the very large investments made to improve road network assets. The 126 km section of the Hiritano Highway, which remained in very good condition for three years following its last upgrade, is an example of this approach.
So far, the World Bank-supported Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Project has helped restore over 160 kilometers of roads across the country. At the same time, more than 50 bridges have also been renovated or replaced. A little over 1.3 million people are estimated to have benefitted from the support.
