Fri, 20 Jan 2017 11:32:37 +0000
By AARON CHIYANZO
RESIDENTS of Katuba ward in Katuba constituency of Chibombo district have teamed up and started working on 10 kilometres of the Chikumbi Road which is in a deplorable state.
The road stretched off from DMI St. Eugene University on the Lusaka- Kabwe road connecting to Chisamba.
The residents said that the road was in its current poor state because of the heavy vehicles which frequented the area to fetch building sand.
The bad state the road worsened during rainy season and that had prompted the residents of Katuba ward to team up and rehabilitate the road to make it passable.
Team leader Susan Mulenga Mwelwa said that the residents, most of whom were farmers donated machinery and other heavy equipment such as tipper trucks and graders to be used in the rehabilitation works.
Ms Mwelwa who led a team journalists to see what the team was doing also said that the church in the area had joined in the project by providing manpower.
She said that the residents had earlier worked on the road but that the heavy trucks ferrying building sand to Lusaka had ruined the road
And the area councillor Mudemba Sibanda said that Chibombo town council had offered to assist the residents with a 15 tonne truck for them to use on the project.
Mr Sibanda also disclosed that Quantum farms had donated diesel to use throughout the project which would commence today.
He appealed to Government to consider tarring the road once the rainy season was over as it was economically important.
Mr Sibanda said that there were a lot of commercial farms in the area, some with processing plants.
Many farmers in the area had complained that business had gone down because of the poor state of the road.
Meanwhile, another resident Mary Sakala said that people have been finding it difficult to ferry patients to the nearby hospital because of the poor state of the same road.
Ms Sakala said that when the road got flooded, no small vehicle could pass through because of the huge ponds that developed on the road.
