Port Moresby governor asks public motor vehicles to stop operating in the city
Bus around Kotaraya area. 4 Nov 2019 . Picture by Choo Choy May. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
PORT MORESBY, Mar 29, 2020, PNG Today. Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop wants to stop PMV services in the city throughout the duration of the 14-day lockdown period. He said it is because there are no social distancing measures in place yet, to implement on the buses and there is no personal protective equipment (PPE) available for the safety of the passengers, PNG Today reported.
While these measures are not in place, Mr Parkop said it is better for the buses to stop operations completely, “as long as buses are running, people are moving, and if people are moving there is a higher chance that the virus will spread.”
People can walk or take taxis to go to the market or the store, but that is if they need to go out of their house in the first place.”
Mr Parkop stressed that this is the time for everyone to co-operate as everyone is paying a price.
He reassured the PMV operators saying; “I want to impress on the PMVs that if you do your part just as everyone else is doing their part, hopefully we won’t have an outbreak. Then we can all go back to normalcy and we can continue with our respective business.”
As business is already evidently slowing due to the lockdown, this call will definitely affect the income of the PMV operators.
“I know the PMVs will suffer losses, but everyone throughout the world and in PNG is suffering losses at this time. Even the United States of America, the world’s biggest economy for example is under stress,” Mr Parkop added.
He further called on everybody to refrain from moving around and reiterated the one meter social distancing rule.
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