Road Development Agency(RDA) Acting Director Communications and Corporate Affairs Anthony Mulowa has said that the government has released over K66m for rehabilitation of damaged road infrastructure across the country.
Mr. Mulowa says this is part of the K350m which is required to rehabilitate 368 damaged road infrastructure countrywide.
He says the road structures that need attention include bridges, road sections, and drainages.
Mr. Mulowa disclosed to ZNBC news that out of the 368 roads, 108 are in very critical condition and require K150m to rehabilitate.
He said operations are underway in rehabilitating very critical road infrastructure such as Kafue Hook Bridge, Ndola-Mufulira-Mokambo Road and Kashikishi-Lunchinda Road.
Mr. Mulowa further said the RDA is working in collaboration with the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to rehabilitate Monze-Niko Road.
Meanwhile, the National Road Fund Agency (NRFA) has said that it expects quality and timely delivery of road projects amongst its engineers.
NRFA Director for Monitoring and Evaluation Johane Tembo said that it is the duty of road engineers to ensure contractors working under their supervision deliver value and well-timed projects whenever they are engaged to do so.
Dr. Tembo was speaking in Livingstone when he addressed Road Engineers from the Ministry of Local Government drawn from Southern and Western Provinces.
He said NRFA’s quest is to ensure road projects are delivered, paid for on time, and at the right price.
And National Council for Construction (NCC) Executive Director Ernest Nshindano said it is important to continuously build capacity in engineers so that they are kept abreast with new trends in the construction industry.
Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Technical Advisor Stephen Malubila stressed that the construction of the over 14-thousand Kilometres rural connectivity World Bank-funded projects in selected Districts countrywide depends on inputs of engineers in local authorities.
K66m or $66m. How many kilometers will it cover? Take out your calculators and help me.
Add a citizen governance and accountability aspect please. Let the local communities tell you what they are seeing on the roads they use. One can tell poor works even when they are not Engineers. The Engineers can technically validate but lets face the truth that some become compromised and certify poor works.
@ Deja Vu I was wondering on the amount but again, this will just be for rehabilitation works and not construction. In short it will be for patching.
Build roads with maintenance contracts so that we are always pro-active in maintaining these roads. It’s expensive in the long run if you build and wait for the structure to collapse before thinking of repairs. Repair works and upgrading should be constant. Just because someone dug a ditch by the side of the road and called it drainage doesn’t mean the repair works are complete. It means someone else can put pipes under that ditch, cover it up and make it safe. Create employment for our people but please remember to pay on time.
Which government made these poorly constructed roads infrastructure that are damaged as soon as works is completed. Incompetence, shoddy and causality in governance of national affairs will keep costing the nation without end. Individuals must be held accountable to this kind of poor management.
I agree with Meme and FutureZeds comments as we request quality control and monitoring. We need to have a Systems in place.
Correction: we need to have Systems in place.
It’s the rainy season again. This is the mushroom season and growing mushrooms always crack the roads built by those we are not allowed to mention.
When I was growing up, repair of roads was just a normal thing…no trumpet blowing. Camps were set at convenient places for road repair personnel. Now it’s a political tool as if personal money is being used.
You need to overhaul RDA, it’s full of incompetence and corruption. Those engineers are in bed with contractors.
The top was overhauled but the bottom is still compromised. Move some people around, transfers.
#10 Musonda Musonda. I have always said that the most dangerous and devastating corruption is by small fish. Their action affects service delivery directly. You can tell by their beyond belief life styles.
How much do we pay in Road tolls every year and why do we then have to wait for government to allocate that money? The road tolls are ment for roads so these funds should not need to be released but circulate within RTSA and repairs should be done immediately. Otherwise scrap them and leave all thisonly to our taxes.