Government has suspended the movement of heavy vehicles at Kacholola area near Luagwa because part of the great east road has been damaged by the floods.
Housing and Infrastructure Development Minister Vincent Mwale and Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) National Coordinator Mr. Chanda Kabwe and the Road Development Agency officials checked on the washed away area Sunday evening.
Mr. Mwale said that the road would be worked on in three days time and business would resume normally .
Mr. Mwale attributed incident to an oversight by the contractor who forgot to replace old calvets with concrete new ones, leaving the road vulnerable to flash floods.
Mr Mwale has since indicated that RDA would inspect other flood prone areas to avoid incidents of such nature.
“The situation has arisen because when we were working on this road. This point the culverts weren’t changed you know and most of the crossing points had the culverts changed and concrete culverts put up in most water prone areas . So because of too much water and force the culverts were washed away and left the road suspended so because of that,it is very risky to have heavy loads to pass on top of the road” Mr. Mwale stated.
“So we are stopping all trucks from passing here we will allow small cars those that are not so heavy…Buses will have to offload, let people disembark, walk and get back on another bus across but this will only happen if it doesn’t rain again once it rains and there is a lot of water we will have to asses the situation we don’t want to risk anyone’s life here and going forward police officers will be able to man this place and determine which vehicle should be able to pass,” he added.
He further indicated that Mr. Kabwe had already arranged with RDA to ensure that baily bridges that were destined for Mambwe from Mongu be mounted at Kacholola on grounds that it was a bigger calamity.
No normally built road can stand water without sufficient drainage. I thought our RDA would know this better as they supervise road construction, or is RDA the one supervised by road contractors?
Theft and broad daylight corruption…money was chewed hence the shoddy work…very common in PF
The effects of nature cannot be tamed. This is unfortunate event. Even in the UK they had storm Dennis this weekend which led to destruction and even landslides. So it is very childish for the two dull people above to blame this on pf. This is why you lose elections. Pobo
As always pointing to other things to justify your corrupt government. I didn’t see any road washed away in Britain. A recent build road washed away calls for other reasons why, don’t blame nature you shameless failures.
RDA inspectorate unit is a letdown. Why do they signoff on such shambolic projects ? Cyclones are becoming common in Mozambique so it’s tym to change Construction specs. Some roads take months just to have road markings done…!!!
You KZ, your minister has already admitted that this failure is due to an incompetent contractor that ‘forgot’ to replace the old caveats, and you want to go and blame it on the weather? Obviously, the failure is both on the contractor (self-serving interests), RDA and it’s oversight authority which would be the Minister. Hence attributing the failure overall to the PF government! Learn to call it as it is and not always running to the defence of your government else you will lose credibility. Oops….what am I saying. You have no credibility to begin with!
Sad development. Another danger that RDA needs to attend to urgently is on Mumbwa road. Those barricades that were put in between the new road are a serious danger and has resulted into serious accidents. RDA, please remove those things before it is too late
ba KZ your massive infrastructure is falling before you eyes….corruption doesn’t help the country
This is really serious economic sabotage by PF government!!! You cant put a country to serious debt of 16 Billion dollars in the name of shoddy infrastructure development. Can the PF and the wailers pay back this debt please.
Before u condemn RDA , check wht inspection report they issued on the GER. Apportioning blame is a cheap shot before examining the evidence.
Was there provision in the contract documents for this particular culvert to be attended to? If yes then serious questions need to be answered.
RDA was instrumental in trying to thin out spending on this project. The whole road was sheering even before contractor reached end point. Yet RDA and resident engineer okayed everything. Signed certificates. So what report thereafter on a road that is just from being built?
Please people don`t be dull mufipalakasa fyenu shame on you because you don`t think no scope whether cheap or not its just an accident that the road collapsed its not the PF`s fault. The hatred is to much, you going too far,taking things so personal. Better still, you panicking for no reason because come 2021 PF is wining.
Corruption is like lies. They both have pretty short legs. The contractor did not forget. They shared the cash for the culverts (akuti calvets kaya mwe). In fact even the old ones are not evident in that space mwe…
I would not be surprised if it was Vincient Mwale’s proxy company that did this shambolic job…all of PF corruption is being exposed by the rain…why dont you name and shame the contractor.
If you remember PF govt imported millions of dollars worth of precast materials from China to replace all these old one last year where have they disappeared to? If I was President I would direct this subcontracting job to ZNS but oh we have a very selfish corrupt thug in State House only interested in by-election campaigning.
WELCOME TO J0N4 CH@K0LA’Z ZAMBIA!!
The shambles above show how P.F has taken dull Zedians for granted. That road has wafer thin tarmac -asphalt /bitumen, & ZERO calvert’s, but if you were to see the invoice, you will see included in the job is “2 feet of tarmac”, & concrete calvert’s. The inflated invoice is then cashed by these P.F vampires & shared, hence J0n@ can build Eswat1ni & daughter can afford to ring fence thousands of acres of forest to protect her Mukula “gold mine”
One then wonders why “Coffin Dozer” Lus@mb0 says “WE ARE NOT HANDING OVER SWEET POWER, EVEN IF WE LOSE”?
If P.F is allowed to rig 2021, Zambia will get worse than Zimbabwe & citizens will flee, some to R.S.A, where they will be fodder to Xenophobic South African’s
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
This problem started when “The Old Demagogue S@ta” took the R.D.A & put it in his bedroom, under the “watchful eye of Willie Ns@nda”
From then on, transparency was LOST, & Bandits like late Ns@nda became extremely wealthy from corrupt awarding of Road contracts & all other P.F officials saw this, wanted a piece of the action, & hence Corruption was normalised & made official party policy in P.F, & it’s been free for all since then.
P.F, WAS & IS STILL THE BIGGEST CURSE TO HAVE EVER BEFALLEN ZAMBIA!!!
And our friends from the East will be clapping and dancing for Edgar when he misappropriates more money for patching up this road again next year when its already been funded with billions of loans.
The Chinese will repair this in one hour
Where is Chitotela? He has been moved and promoted by the incompetent boss to national parks to sell wildlife now…this is what is going to happen to tourism in Zambia,
Mr. Mwale attributed incident to an oversight by the contractor who forgot to replace old calvets with concrete new ones, leaving the road vulnerable to flash floods. – Is the minister saying it is the contractors fault? Did they not take out performance insurance or guarantee? Or is this another one of pf hopeless deals?
The only problem that we have with our contractors in Zambia is that the standard of the road that they are constructing it is not for the highways or industrial standard these roads are as good as domestic roads because if we are to look at the material which was used down there under Calvert it can show you that the roads was not properly done there was no based course involved no stones no mixture of cement and the stones to strengthen the base of the road but for the payments of that road it was on highway standards with huge amount of money doing very cheap job like that one when the road is paid such a huge amount of money like that then the Guarantee of the rords is 10 years.