BY GEORGE MANFORD
AUKI
Kwara’ae.
THE poor conditions in Malaita’s roads has spilled over to another problem – road blocks by landowners and demanding passing vehicles for money.
Island Sun has received reports that villagers along a road in west Kwara’ae are setting up road blocks and demanding passing vehicles for cash.
The villagers are justifying their actions, saying that they have laboured to fix roads in their areas therefore are entitled to some form of incentive from drivers using their ‘improved roads’.
The villagers say, “Our roads are now in bad conditions where we believe no further maintenances will be carried out soon so we have to maintain those bad areas and our public transport owners have to give us something out from our hard work.
“We did not demand our transport owners only but we also demanded our national government to improve our roads where it is now in its bad stages.”
One traveling passenger, David Du’u, told this paper yesterday that on his way to Auki he noticed three road block areas in the west Kwara’ae area.
He said, “It looks so sad that some of the villagers including women and children were involving in such activities to demand for money.
“We call on the Auki police to investigate on such practices on public roads where it is illegal to make such demands on public vehicles when travelling on public roads.”
Vehicles are charged within the range of $50 – $100 per vehicle, depending on the type.
