A Nation of Rivers Where Water is Scarce

In PNG, a country of rivers where rain is measured in meters, I do find it incomprehensible that potable water is a scarce resource.

Sitting outside my room, in a dawn haze of humidity, in a village with no power, water or sewage I understand why we do what we do. Waking around me is the village of Kikori, a place of 8000 people all of whom come out at 9am every Wednesday to clear any rubbish because there is no garbage collection. This village and thousands like it don’t have access to regular services.

If they don’t look after themselves, who will?

Getting water to the people is hard work, it’s a bottom up approach and it’s takes full commitment. Naturally the towns all want water. The mine foundations, government departments, bankers and NGO’s all want to give it. The problem is, there are very few teams who have the determination and skill to take a project from desire to reality and on to long term sustainability.

This time we are rolling the sleeves up and Hydroflux Epco are in-country with Fimali LTD and their community liaison team delivering presentation after presentation to ministers, political members, financiers, landowners and key stake holders. From this early stake holder engagement the Hydroflux and Fimali team will work in line with the PNG government’s vision for public-private partnerships to generate inclusive and transparent opportunities.

Our aim is to ensure projects go from idea to execution through to sustainable management like the Epco RoadTrain® STP we visited this morning installed in 1992 in Kopi still going strong to this day.

So now, it’s time for us to transfer that robust mining ideology into the community environment. It’s a new concept and only time will tell if it is achievable but nothing was ever easy and if we don’t try and find a solution, this village and thousands like it, will never have access to clean potable water.