The Project for Capacity Development on Road Maintenance

1. Scheme

Technical Cooperation

2. Counterpart Organization

Department of Works (DoW) URL: http://www.works.gov.pg/ (external link)

3. Project Duration

2013/11 ~ 2017/10

4. Introduction

More than 70% of PNG's national roads are unpaved. In addition to that, natural disasters such as a landslide and a flood occur frequently every year in PNG. DoW is responsible for the maintenance of national roads. However, due to a lack of proper equipment and skilled staffs, such in-house operation has not shown good performance until now. As a result, rural roads have been left in poor condition without proper maintenance by DoW. Regarding a lack of proper equipment, the Government of Japan has committed the Grant Aid Project "The Project for Improvement of Road Maintenance Equipment". Total 48 pieces of heavy equipment such as bulldozer, excavator, motor grader, wheel loader, vibratory roller, water tank truck, dump truck, mobile workshop and necessary spare parts were provided to DoW. This project aims at complementing and strengthening the output of abovementioned Grant Aid Project by developing road maintenance capacity of DoW staffs.

During the project period, JICA experts are planning to conduct the support of revision/development of heavy equipment user manuals and training materials. They also provide DoW with On the Job Training (OJT) and Training of Trainers (TOT) for enhancing the capacity of road maintenance with their ownership. The maintenance works are going to be done by the trained DoW staff in the pilot site with using the JICA provided heavy equipment.

5. Target Provinces

Morobe Province, Western Highlands Province, East Sepik Province, West New Britain Province

6. The Snapshots of the Project

Mr. Shigeru Sugiyama (left), Chief Representative of JICA PNG Office, and Mr. David Wereh (right), Acting Secretary of DoW, agreed on the frame work of this project. Finally, they concluded the Record of Discussion (R/D) on 01/Aug/13 with the attendance of target provinces' provincial works managers.

The first project's kick-off meeting was held on 02/Dec/13. The work plan of this project was approved in the meeting between Mr. Wereh and JICA expert team led by Mr. Hisashi Muto. JICA awarded the service of this technical cooperation project to the joint venture of INGÉROSEC Corporation and Oriental Consultants Co., LTD.

The heavy equipment is provided by JICA under Grand Aid scheme. The handing over ceremony was taken place on 11/Mar/14. The equipment was distributed to 4 target provinces and will be utilized for this project to conduct OJT and TOT.

The OJT will be conducted on the pilot site with doing road maintenance on actual deteriorated roads. Mr. Orikasa, road maintenance engineer, surveyed one candidate road for the pilot site in Western Highlands Province on Mar/14.

JICA expert is conducting the OJT in the pilot project (pilot project photo1).

Pilot project photo 2

Provincial Works Manager and JICA experts are having workshops for local community near pilot sites before starting pilot project to get understandings of the project.

JICA expert is providing the training with operator about how to operate the excavator.