28 May 2008

Work on Okuk highway in Papua New Guinea resumes

10:51 am on 28 May 2008

Work on a bypass on the Okuk highway in Papua New Guinea has resumed despite compensation claims from landowners.

The government is building a bypass after a landslide blocked the key road in the Highlands over a month ago.

The road is now passable again but the landslide had earlier blocked travel into the Highlands region, causing fuel and food shortages.

Our correspondent, Oseah Philemon, says the government is talking to the landowners, but it's now also dealing with people claiming to be landowners.

"The issue of compensation has been raised. The government has a team that is addressing that issue with the local landowners. Hopefully they will deal with the real landowners and not with people pretending to be landowners. That's one of the problems in PNG where sometimes you find people just putting up a shed or something just to so that they can make a claim for compensation. But in this particular case the government is very very careful in assessing compensation."

Oseah Philemon.