Department of Works & Highways Field Staff Conference 2022

Department of Works & Highways Secretary David Wereh praised the Marape/Basil Government on its continued effort to reconfigure the Department of Works into the Department of Works & Highways. 

The Department will contribute to the delivery of the National Road Network Strategy and the Connect PNG Program for the people of Papua New Guinea.

Reconfigured to be more focused on the 16 national priority roads in Papua New Guinea that make up 8000kms of the country’s entire network. 

The 21,000 km of sub-national roads will fall under the jurisdiction of the districts and provincial government in terms of the funding component whilst the supervision component of road works for districts and provincial roads is still with the Department of Works & Highways.

The department is currently in its reform process supported by the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) to capture the new role as the key advisor on road sector matters and play the sole road authority for the National Road Network enabled by the PNG (Management & Fund) Act 2020.

Mr. Wereh alluded to the continued legislative and executive government’s support to pass the Road (Management & Fund) Act 2020 to park aside by Law the 5.6 percent (K1.2 billion) guaranteed road funding from the National Government budget annually under the Connect PNG program rollout which will come into effective in 2023 made possible by the new Act.

The Secretary was speaking during DoWH first field staff conference for 2022. The theme of the conference is “understanding the reform and engineering the future”. The conference highlighted the significant changes under the Connect PNG program and the PNG Road (Management and Fund) Act 2021.

He made these remarks during the DoWH field staff conference at Gateway Hotel which saw all works managers in the 22 provinces in attendance with donors, development partners, and consultants.

Mr. Wereh also made remarks to acknowledge the past and present staff for their praiseworthy contributions over the years. He also challenged the works managers that the reforms in the road sector were done to empower them to be the representative of works in their respective provinces.

During the conference, the works managers were also given the latest update on the process and reforms that is taking place currently in the department. In accordance with the PNG (Management & Fund) Act, the PNG Road Fund only manages the funding.

Whilst the DOWH does all the program planning, engineers estimate, work plan, and budgeting process, and the Connect PNG program does the implementation.