Veteran construction man Noel Williams has been involved in civil construction work in Papua New Guinea for 31 years. He stresses the poor state of Lae roads and what should be done about it ...

Many observers over the last decade have commented through various means such as: television, newspapers and political statements about the condition and reasons why Lae roads are in the condition they are in.

Comments such as “a disgrace; it will affect the economy of the province; lack of funds and the wet weather Lae experiences”. I agree that it is a disgrace, in fact I would go as far as saying it is outright criminal and a major crime being committed throughout not only Lae, but the whole country. Why?

Consider the following:

• Businesses and individuals pay taxes, these taxes are imposed for and through various reasons and methods and collected by the national and provincial governments supposedly to be utilised to supply and maintain infrastructure and services to the population.
• The infrastructure of this country are the assets of the people, they are not the property of the members of parliament. The members are elected by the people and entrusted to carry out the duty of looking after these assets to ensure adequate services to the population. The value and life of these assets is vital to the growth of this country. The cost of replacement of these assets is very expensive. I believe the present value of these assets would be in the order of 30 – 45% of their true value if they had been maintained over the past three decades.
• A country with minimal or poorly maintained assets cannot, supply adequate services to their constituents. These services include; Law and Order, Education, Health Services and a means to transfer produce from rural areas to the urban areas. Our exports are suffering, coffee, copra and cocoa exports are down by up to 50 per cent to what they were 35 years ago, mainly due to the condition of the roading infrastructure.
• Lae has been experiencing rain for the past 1000 years. How were the roads built and maintained in a reasonable condition 30 to 40 years ago, it rained then. I don’t accept rain as an excuse. I blame lack of planning, lack of good budgeting, financial mismanagement and poor, poor management. Everyone blames someone else, outright buck passing. You can delegate authority but you cannot fully delegate responsibility, it is still your ultimate responsibility to follow up and ensure your original instruction is being carried out. Check out your law books, fellows.

To set up a good works program for Lae roads would probably take about four to six months and to set it motion would probably be carried over an initial period of about two to four months. I will not go into the wherewith all of setting up this system here.
It happened before in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, it could and should still be happening. Why isn’t it? Ask yourself this question. What has changed, politicians, provincial government systems, management personnel or maybe its just the wantok system has taken over another – word for nepotism.

Most of all the new expatriates in the country are being instructed not to upset the locals, just get on with your job, get your money and go home or if you are not politically correct you will be deported. A fat lot of use they are.

It is now getting to the point where public servants, you know the one who are supposedly employed to service the public, don’t even attend work full time or if they are away, their part of the system stops. Whatever, they still get paid – why, because their boss is most probably away as well. No physical checks are carried out on a daily basis.

Think of the thousands, no millions of kina that could be saved if they were treated similar to the private sector. Think of the misuse of vehicles in government departments, add it up. Probably enough to fund a few aid posts and schools. The national and provincial politicians seem to have got carried away with material wealth over the years and talk about monetary reserves. These reserves mean nothing to the grass roots, they want good roads, schools, aid posts and law and order in good working order.

This means allocating sufficient funds to run and maintain the same. Too many times we see new infrastructure being supplied but no equipment or no thought of future funding or training and a method of following up to ensure that the assets are being maintained “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Maybe the Government has a hidden agenda to keep the masses ignorant and dependent on the system, after all the grass roots will believe what they are told. I hear lip service being paid to the problems but nothing ever happens.

We hear about transparency. What does that mean, as long as you steal or misuse the finances or assets of the country and it is done openly it then becomes transparent? How many inquiries have been held where persons are implicated and the reports are shelved due to others in power being implicated?

We now have the defence, police and correctional departments being laws unto themselves and going against the law of the land while the population suffers.

They will not charge anyone breaking the law unless someone lays a complaint. Hogwash, it is their duty to uphold the law and ensure anyone breaking the law suffers the consequences.
Keep in mind when you push a lowly rat into a corner with no escape he will turn on you, so be wary of the public. Politicians - local, provincial, national, departmental heads and force commanders – take a good hard look at your selves and try to be honest and if you do, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Lae roads can be fixed there is no excuse other than mismanagement, laziness and nepotism.
Port Moresby roads have improved over the last 12 months, still a way to go but getting better. If they can do it, so can Lae.

The country is tired of bandaid treatment of our assets, we need to do something now. The main problems with Lae roads are caused with the contractors. The designs are good and no different to any other areas in Papua New Guinea or overseas countries. Flexible pavements are used throughout New Zealand, another country that experiences high rainfalls. It is the method of construction, not the designs. Of course the supervision by the clients leaves a bit to be desired.
Years ago a full time clerk of Works would be employed by the client/consultant to ensure the works are carried out correctly and to the design. Tests on all materials were conducted, compaction testing was carried out every so many metres of road length.

The surface levels we survey checked to ensure crossfalls and camber were correct. That is very seldom done today and we are ending up with flat surfaces and water tends to accumulate on the surface. Mainly due to the centre line area being flattened by grader drivers and no stringline checks to check cross falls are correct.

Another reason is the finish surface prior to sealing, remembering the bitumen seal coat is only a rain coat and does not appreciably add to the strength of the road. The surface finishes we are predominately getting is referred to as a fatty surface, that is, consisting of very fine material (clay and silt).

These fines have little or no strength. This surface may be only 1 to 4mm thick, however this material breaks down very quickly under traffic conditions. The cover aggregate under traffic loading tends to penetrate the bitumen into this layer. Through this many events can and do occur:

• The bitumen layer rises above the aggregate, causing flushing of the road surface.
• The sealing aggregates cause the thin layer to break down and you end up with bitumen surface that loses it bond to the pavement proper, eventually aggregate will break loose, allowing water to infiltrate the surface and causing potholes. This can occur as early as three months after completion.
• Another reason for the quick appearance of potholes is prior to sealing and during rain a number of small potholes can appear. Rather than scarifying the surface and re-compacting the surface is just graded to fill the holes. The surface is then sealed and within three months potholes appear.
• Presently the only test being carried out on base course is the particle distribution test. This test does not ensure that the material is of the correct strength and 50% to 70% of the time the material breaks down under traffic loading very quickly. A good supervisor should notice this during construction by the amount of slurry that is produced watering and compaction. You do not need to slurry a pavement to produce a good surface for sealing. If the surface has fatted up it should be left to wear off with traffic use. If rain is encountered during construction a running course should be spread on the surface that is, 4-8mm clean chip.

This material will keep the vehicle tires off the surface and less damage appears. Again this is dependent on whether the surface is being constructed to the correct falls. Another thing you don’t see much these days is the drag broom used to assist surface finishing.

If contractors and consultants allowed for all these items the cost of designing and constructing roads would increase substantially, although I believe that some of the rates for construction are exorbitant and like property rents no real reason for it other than greed. Probably also loaded due to the slow payments by Papua New Guinea government departments, after all they are usually using credit lines at high interest rates to pay for the construction works.

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