Mt Hagen unsafe

I WOULD like to warn non-Western Highlanders to be cautious when travelling to Mt Hagen. Hageners have taken control of the city by harassing those who come from other neighbouring provinces, making it a dangerous place to live and to do business. The locals roam the streets in groups and hold up people, pick pockets, kidnap young girls and even commit murder.

I have lived there my entire life until recently when I decided enough was enough and relocated. When I visited Mt Hagen last year, I was surprised to see that things had gone from bad to worse. The people’s attitudes have changed to aggressiveness. On two occasions, I witnessed non-Hageners being held up.

My fellow Western Highlanders, we are richly blessed with a land that can produce abundant crops to earn a living. So why are we depicting such a bad image of ourselves as hooligans?

- Kange


Rainbow Supermarket in the heart of Mount Hagen City is one of the main shopping centers for shoppers who want groceries - pic by D.Ketepa

Political mess in WHP

AS a Western Highlander living outside the province, I am sad, ashamed and outraged with the current state of affairs back home. I am talking about election-related fatalities, the burning down of Kapal Haus and the current power struggle in the province. I would like to ask Paias Wingti and Tom Olga when they are going to sit down together and develop the province.

It is the small people who make Western Highlands tick – mothers selling their goods in the market, coffee pickers in Waghi, taxi drivers in Port Moresby and those who make an honest living within and outside the province.

Not you two. Mr Olga is the elected leader, so act like one. Mr Wingti must learn to accept defeat and move on. Western Highlands needs service, not political war.

Fed up kange,

Port Moresby

Source: Editorial of The National


*** The Jika and Moge clans who surround Mount Hagen City should be blamed for not being cooperative to crub these criminal activities in the city. As a Jika offspring, I am ashamed of seeing and hearing all these crap nearly everyday in the biggest highlands city of Papua New Guinea.

I urge Jika and Moge leaders to put your acts together to minimize these criminal activities for Western Highlands Province to prosper. Can we have some sense of mobilizing our folks to clean and weed out unwanted plants in our garden?

On the same token, until the leadership tussle between Olga and Wingti for the governorship in the province is settled, law and order situation in the province will escalate to a greater degree.