By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
PRIME Minister James Marape said that they have plans to modernize colonial towns throughout the country.
He said there will be allocation of land mobilization and urban area extension in the 2023 Budget.
“Colonial towns like Wau and Bulolo in Morobe Province will be featured in the consideration to modernize town and cities in our country. And issues of settlements which need to be relocate properly line in wau and Bulolo for economic districts. The housing minister is working on a programme for us to give away the old houses that Papua New Guineans have lived in for a long time.
And when the housing minister completes the policy, hopefully before December, we are looking at the giveaway housing scheme to long time tenants at a very low cost that they have been paying all the rentals in time and that is how we will look at public servants houses in Wau and Bulolo. So, re-urbanization is what we are doing in the next context,” the PM said.
PM Marape was responding to Bulolo MP Sam Basil Jnr in Parliament on Friday during question time.
Mr Basil jnr said that Bulolo DDA submitted a resolution to Housing and urbanization Minister in July.
“Bulolo is a historical town with forestry, mining and agriculture activities. Bulolo has many ethnicities and since 2005 the Sepiks were dislodged from their area (that they have been living since the gold rush days in the 1930s) due to ethnic clashes and stayed at Bulolo Police Station and the station is now a refugee camp without water and sanitation. All Government houses in Bulolo are over 60 years old and would now be used as part of historical relics. Houses can be destroyed for new house,” Basil Jnr said.
