By Dr. Charles Ngoma
Many years ago, I had the misfortune of being involved in a road traffic incident on the notorious ‘manenekela‘ just around Luangwa bridge on the not so ‘great’ East road! It took us 5 hours to get to an institution with a semblance of a hospital, really on a wing and a prayer with God’s good grace expressed through the kindness of passers by who offered lifts from one section of the trip to another, as long as we paid them something for fuel, although they were making the trip in that direction anyway!
The recent disaster on the Nyimba section of the GER is not the first and will not be the last. As one travels on this treacherous thoroughfare from Lusaka to Chipata, the road is litered with hundreds of motor vehicle carcasses throughout. Road traffic accidents in Zambia have just become far too common and are too high per capita of the population. This problem must be addressed with utmost urgency by the incoming government because road fatalities are depriving the nation of highly valuable human resources.
There are two main causes of these avoidable accidents.
1. The appalling state of the road infrastructure.
The Patriotic Front leader Mr Sata, has had the advantage of travelling up and down the country mainly by road rather than by air compared to the President and ministers. He has seen for himself how terrible Zambian roads are and this is not a new thing because it has been the case since Torno and ZECCO left the scene many moons ago! The funny thing is that as soon as people are elected to power, they forget about these problems as they fly 10,000 feet above the ground and every piece of the country looks ‘pretty’ from the air!
Who is responsible for this and who is to blame? Well, the country is parcelled into constituencies and each constituency has an elected representative at the Manda Hill where the national treasury is cut up for various expenses. Don’t the elected MPs know about these problems? Then, there are councils which are responsible for the roads within their district jurisdiction. All have elected representatives who drive or walk or cycle on the same roads day by day. Why is it so hard to bring these problems to the attention of government? If it is impossible, it means that we are electing the wrong people into power and we must get rid of this dead wood!
We also have the National Roads institution which should look after the inter city portions of these roads, the motorways and trunk roads.
This pathetic state of our roads is not just in relation to the road surface but warning sign posting as well. The only time one sees a road sign in Zambia is on paper during driving lessons and driving licence testing! You better memorise these signs because you will never see them again on the roads! The portion of the not great east pathway I referred to for my accident had a pool of spilled oil on it and there was no barrier on the edge to prevent one from bungie jumping but without the bunge!
2. Just Driver error and Carelessness.
It should be law to restrict public passenger service drivers to trips not longer than 4 hours to allow for rest. Bus owners are raking billions of Kwacha every year by pushing their drivers to run errands too many. The high ways have no rest facilities and service stations! There is very little one can do to prevent personal stupidity but if passengers do not complain about recklessness on the part the driver conveying them, then they should not complain if he sends them to an early death.
What can we do about this?
Managing roads is expensive business. Turning GER into a dual carriage way as Mr Sata is promising is not the answer to this. In fact it will increase road deaths because the Ndola-Kitwe road ihas seen fatalities too, and the late Nkumbula being one victim.
There are cheaper ways and means of helping reduce the carnage.
1. Re introduce the regular highway patrols. I am reminded of the Elisha Banda led team of ‘cow boys’ in the early 70s. The idea was good but premature. We need that now. If we had one patrol for each 100 kms it would help to keep drivers under check.
2. Improve warning sign posting and let these be dealt with by the local civic administration.
3. Travel and medical insurance to be included in the ticketing price. The proprietor of the bus company must also be made to contribute towards medical bills and compensation of the victims. This will make them to be careful the way they convey people and prevent over loading and ‘doba doba’.
4. Invest in rail networks. Rail travel is safer and even better for the environment. If we had adequate rail networks, it would take off the heavy cargo transport off the roads and thus giving them a longer lease of life and less cost in maintenance. The extension of the Chipata Muchinji rail to Mpika is welcome, but all other Provincial headquarters must be joined by rail to Lusaka. I would suggest more investment into the rail system to modernise and expand capacity than a dual carriage way to Chipata from Lusaka. What about Mongu to Lusaka. Kasama to Kapiri mposhi, Ndola to Lusaka? I doubt whether Zambia has enough money to do this at the present time.
5. Vehicle fitness. The law must be strengthened here. There are too many unfit vehicles on Zambia’s roads.
6. Sensitising drivers to good driving. So many Zambians are still driving while under the influence of alcohol. Road side breatherlisers at check points may help. Naming and shaming bad drivers publicly would also help.
This is something that must be looked into as a matter of urgency. We cannot afford preventable loss of life.
God bless the Republic of Zambia.
