The Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Industries and Commerce will submit the cost estimate to President Johnson Toribiong this week. The president will then decide and identify the source of money to be used to repair the damaged road.
A 60 meter section of the highway built three years ago in Palau has collapsed due to heavy rains.Aside from the collapsed road, several days of torrential rainfall, also caused several mudslides along the road.Palau is continually cleaning the mudslides.The section of the road on the east side of the island south of the Palauan capitol in Melekeok dropped about 3 meters and a detour around the damage was put in place within a few days.It is located in Ngchesar between the Jungle River Cruise and the Ngchesar-Koksai intersection. The 85 kilometer roadway was built by South Korea-based Daewoo Engineering and Contracting Company Ltd, under contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.It was completed in 2006 at a cost of 143 million US dollars and funded with Compact funding from the United States.Minister Jackson Ngiraingas said that Palau cannot dip into the $3 million fund supposedly reserved for maintenance of the Compact Road.He said the money will be used to purchase road equipment to maintain the road.He said Palau is hopeful that the recent visit of the Congressional delegation from the United States will spur into assistance for the repair of the collapsed road.
