By NOBERT KOKE
Operating a small retail business in some of the most remote parts of the country is quite challenging especially with the freight cost.
Places where there is access to better road link pay less in freight cost, but to some places where there’s no road link and are interlocked by mountainous terrains and robust topography- air transport remains the only available means.
One of such beautiful places is found in West Sepik province particularly Telefomin district. Telefomin is the only district in the country that relies heavily on air transport.
For the past years and still today the people of Telefomin have been using air transports such as the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Hevilift, Air Sanga and other airline service providers to bring in goods and services to the district.
Telefomin town is small but unique; its CBD area has more than five retail shops, a rural BSP bank, a vegetable market, police station, a primary and secondary school, district office and a new refurbished fully kitted hospital, which was recently opened by the Prime Minister James Marape in September of 2020. All this serves the people of Telefomin district and the government workers.
However, it was surprising to note that the price of store goods in one of the retail shops was twice more compared to the price of the same item in an urban shop.
Asked why the price of a 330 millilitre Coca-Cola can was selling at K8.00 and a packet of Navy Biscuit was selling at K4.00 and the obvious answer was to compensate for the freight cost.
Motop Retail shop owner Ronen Bong who has been operating his small shop for a number of years now and is serving the people of Telefomin with basic household goods said it is not that easy to operate in such remote place where aeroplane is the only mode of transport.
Ronen said the experience of having to fly to Kiunga and place an order and later to charter a plane to fly the store goods from Kiunga to Telefomin is quite a very expensive exercise.
“We depend on the aeroplane, once there is no flight we have to wait for our charters. The demand of goods and services is there but we have to ensure that we meet that demand and our charters must be here on time.
“The airline operators played a big part in our operation in serving the rural people of Telefomin. Without this service it will be really hard for us to operator such business,” Ronen said.
He said to charter a flight from Kiunga to Telefomin is K8,000.00 for other air service providers but for MAF is K6,000.00 and they are allowed to carry only 1,000 kilogram and no more than that.
“We can place as much order as we can but we have to ensure that it meets the required weight of the plane which is 1(tonne/1000kg) per flight. If we go above 1000 kg then we charter another flight. So the pricing of all store goods compensate the cost of the freight as you can see.
“I usually make two to three charters per month depending on the demand for the store goods. Despite the pricing the people have the buying power and the goods usually run out before the end of the new month,” he said.
Ronen said with the initiative of local MP and Minister for Defence Solan Mirisim to connect Telefomin by road it will ease their burden of paying much higher fees on freight.
“With the new road connecting Telefomin from Tabubil and Kiunga, we can be able use the land transport to bring in as much goods and services that we have desired for in less cost to the freight.
“I want to thank Minister Mirisim for taking the bold move in investing heavily on the road project which will change Telefomin forever once it is fully completed,” Ronen said.
He added that Minister Mirisim is not only doing this for the retail shop owners but this will be an opportunity and game changer for the people of Telefomin to be linked to the other parts of the country and the world at large.
“We have a lot of eco-tourism and agriculture opportunity in the district and once the road link is completed there will be influx of people and we have to be ready for this change.”
