Road Maintenance

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 10:55:54 +0000

We challenge the Chief Executive Director of the Road Development Agency Engineer Elias Mwape to drive along Mungwi Road, past Zambia Breweries, and explain to the nation why the road has been allowed to deteriorate to such a deplorable state.

While at it, he should also explain why Lumumba road repairs made after an outcry are amateurish and at worst a sheer mockery to the intelligence of Lusaka motorists. Mounds of laterite are still piled besides the damages section on the road.

Surely, it does not require the supervision of the chairman of the RDA or indeed political leadership to realise the danger to which motorists are placed when roads are allowed to develop potholes which graduate into gullies.

Mungwi road is a total disgrace.

The contrast between residential road in Lusaka and those in the heavy industrial area is so glaring. Clearly, very little thought was given to the design characteristic of the road in the industrial area which carry heavy loads and therefore, impact the road more severely.

Clearly, these are issues and dynamics which any trained civil or road engineer should understand and must, therefore, anticipate in designing a road. There is absolutely no excuse for the shoddy gullies that pass for roads on account of poor design and atrocious workmanship.

We entirely agree with the Minister of Finance Felix Mutati who has expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of repairs being undertaken on roads. It is indeed difficult to imagine that professional supervision is ever provided in the design and planning of maintenance and repairs of roads.

We know for a fact that road design and maintenance including repair should be done by qualified officers. There is no doubt that the crews effecting repairs on our roads have absolutely no clue  apart from pouring boiled tarmac or indeed piling laterite on the roads in  the hope that  motors vehicles will compact the makeshift works.

This is wrong and uncalled for. Our roads require more competent attention to ensure longevity and at most safe driving for motorists.

It does not require the competence of a hydraulic engineer to appreciate the exponential damage to road integrity caused by stagnant water in potholes. Within days a small crack appearing on a road, it will deteriorate into a pothole and within a week into a pothole and thereafter into a gully.

It is common sense that potholes are made after water penetrates the asphalt  road surfacing because  the volumes and weights these roads are made to bear is beyond the design specifications. This combined with failure to ensure regular routine maintenance leads to neglect.

This is the condition in which Mungwi road finds itself.  Over time the heavy Lorries delivering fuel in the area have pounded the road into virtual oblivion. There is actually no road to talk about.

The question that begs the answer is whether we actually have maintenance sections within the council or indeed RDA to constantly drive along roads and ensure a care and maintenance programme that is intended to keep them in a reasonable state of repair.

There should be no doubt that damaged roads are a huge expense on the ordinary motorists, especially those least able to meet the cost of constant vehicle repairs.

Zambia is not only the country suffering from road damages. Our neighbours have similar problems, but they seem to have developed a maintenance routine that tends to and provides palliative care while awaiting major overhaul of trunk routes and inner city roads.

In South Africa an integrated approach has been designed encompassing the use of pothole repair kits which are used to prevent deterioration of roads.

We challenge Mr. Mwape and wish to assure him that our reporters will follow up the matter.