
Early this week, the Lae City Council waste management division closed down a Chinese owned sausage factory located in the same compound as a mattress and rubber footwear factory.
The factory, located at Two Mile is housed in a set of large warehouses completed in 2014.
The factory’s waste management was questionable from the start. However, the city health inspectors have dragged their feet despite numerous calls by residents to investigate the pollution and the poor waste disposal methods.
Weak enforcement of laws in Lae City is a major problem.
Over six years, there have been various complaints about building board regulation breaches, health and safety breaches. The problem has been compounded by a dysfunctional municipal authority that has not actively collected garbage over the last six years.
The question that keeps being asked is: “Where are the government officers paid to enforce the laws?”
Where are the building board inspectors? Where are the land and physical planning inspectors who are supposed to enforce the laws?

Classic examples of possible breaches of laws… at Admin Compound, there is a new shop that has been opened within the residential area. It is even legal? Did it follow due process? What is the zoning allocation of the land? Residential or commercial?
Same with that ugly brick building along the Salamander-Bugandi section of the highway… It is smack bang in a residential area. No access road. No parking space. Who gave them permission to place a large building there?

In Boundary Road, a new shopping centre in the middle of a residential area.
How did that happen? And who authorised it?
Taxpayers pay the salaries of government officers who are supposed to protect the people’s interest.
Why are regulations being twisted at the expense of Papua New Guineans?
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