Work to Begin Soon

on Moresby Wharf

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, April 22.

AT last the contract for the new Port Moresby wharf has been let, the successful tenderer being Hornibrook Constructions Limited.

This firm’s first major job for the Government after setting up in Port Moresby, was the Fisherman’s Island It has taken a few smaller contracts, including roads and drainage for the Matirogo Estate, but since it has the capacity for much bigger assignments and a machinery pool in the South on which to draw, it could obviously be more use fully employed on bigger undertakings.

It is a pretty safe bet that, by the time the wharf is finished (the contract specifies 18 months) other major projects will have emerged from the planning rooms of the Government Departments.

We credit the Moresby Advisory Council for the fact that the wharf will be large, enough to berth two overseas ships of the size which normally call at Port Moresby.

Arguments and counter-arguments went back and forth over this thorny question, for apparently the Commonwealth Gov ernment was quite content to build a single-berth wharf. The Advisory Council, however, fought the issue tooth and nail, mustered its own experts, produced its own scale-drawn plan, and stubbornly refused to accept the bland assurances of the departmental engineers and spokes man.

So Port Moresby will have a two-berth wharf, and the demurrage for the port will drop accordingly.

The new structure is to be 700 feet with dolphins at either end which will give an over-all length of 780. It will be sixty feet wide, and although the new plan provides for only one approach, later improvements may include a second.

Meanwhile, the present approach will not be dismantled and it is intended to keep it in use.

Hornibrook’s tender for construction of the wharf is £159,765, with the Works and Housing Department supplying all structural steel and timbers. It’s likely that the final cost will be about £300,000.