People build Mt Kuta roads

Kopi people on the Kuta road with their spades and other tools.

By JOHNNY POIYA

ROADS in and around Mt Kuta outside Mt Hagen have been upgraded over the last three months, courtesy of spade wielding councillor Peter Raim and his Kopi people. Mr Raim, upon his declaration in this year’s LLG election, embarked on a road maintenance program that included seven feeder roads leading into villages and the main Kuta road which have been neglected for the last 15 years.

The upper part of the six kilometer road was cut off at Sigiraprap market by a landslip. A telecommunication repeater station, world renown Haus Poromon Lodge, a world acclaimed Orchid farm, the Kuta Primary School and a population of over 5000 people, which includesmembers from several tribes in the Nebilyer Valley have been cut off for 10 years. The landslide which cut off the road has increased and now is on the verge of destroying several houses and stores. Mr Raim said: “We’ve waited for too long for the government to come and fix our roads.

We can’t keep on waiting so we took things into our own hands and started maintenance work on all our smaller roads with spades and bush knives.” Over 500 men, women and children from the tribe armed with crowbars, spades and bush knives started work on the main Kuta road early Saturday morning and had the whole length of road fixed by late afternoon. “We did this for some time with all our roads.

We now hope that those in government can help us fix up the section of the road that was damaged by the landslip. Its big and we can’t fix it manually.”Mr Raim said. The Kuta road was established during the 1940s when first outsider Danny Leahy settled up in the hills overlooking Mt Hagen. There was a gold rush in the area when Leah discovered the precious metal. Members of the Leahy family, who are now part of the Kopi tribe, still live there.