Author: Keri-Ann

By LUKE KAMA
ROAD stabilisation technology which the Works Department incorporated as a requirement of its standards in 2015 is slowly paying off for PNG, Works Secretary David Wereh says.

“The problem we have had over the past years was that we built roads and after one or two years or even few months, we see potholes popping up,” he said. “These have cost the government a lot of money in terms of maintenance when money should be spent on building new roads.”

Wereh said the issue was with road design standards and he took the initiative to have road stabilisation technology as a standard requirement for the country and in 2015.
It was successfully incorporated as a standard requirement for all road contractors to comply with.

“Since then, the roads that were built in the country tended to stand the test of time compared with those that were built previously,” Wereh said. “If you look at the roads from Togoba to Wabag and from Walum to Yalo, they are built using road stabilisation technology and after almost five years of construction, you can hardly find a single pothole on these stabilised roads. This also applies to the four-lane Lae city roads. They were stabilised using asphalt and you can hardly find a single pothole on these roads in the waterlogged city.”

Wereh said any future road construction would take on board the standard requirement and it also came with costs but the benefits far outweighed the costs.