Maravi

‘Budgetary constraints affecting RDA operations’

‘Budgetary constraints affecting RDA operations’
By Mwala Kalaluka
Tue 02 Mar. 2010, 03:10 CAT

BUDGETARY constraints have made it difficult for the Road Development Agency (RDA) to undertake a major contract of replacing the vandalism-prone steel culverts on the closed Maamba-Batoka road with concrete ones.

RDA head of public relations Loyce Saili said there were about 100 amcor steel culverts on the road that needed to be replaced with concrete ones in a bid to reinforce the road and address the problem of vandalism.

Saili, who was giving an update on the intervention that had been put in place so far to address the closure of the road after vital installations were washed away, said the steel culverts were also installed a long time ago.

She said a major steel culvert had collapsed about 15 kilometres from Sinazeze and that efforts had been made to replace the culvert with a concrete one.

“We are replacing them with the concrete ones because the steel ones are vulnerable to erosion and vandalism,” Saili said. “There are over 100 amcor pipes or culverts on that road and most of them need to be replaced…we need a major contract for that. Probably, we will be able to plan for that next year because we could not take care of it the other year because of budgetary constraints.”

Saili said the work of reinforcing the collapsed culvert would be completed within a few days.
“But safely let us say within the week,” she said. “There it is totally unsafe to cross.”

Saili said about 10 km from Batoka, the river had changed course resulting into serious erosion of one lane of the road.

“We have to fill it up with new material,” Saili said. “At the Bottom Road where it starts from Sinazeze, between Sinazeze and Chiyabi the first drift has been washed away cutting off Chiyabi from Sinazeze.”

Saili said it would not be possible for the RDA to fix the problem at the first drift on the Bottom Road in the shortest space of time.

“We have to wait for the water levels to go down,” she said. “The current is too high and so anybody trying to cross is just risking their own lives.”

The Ministry of Works and Supply on Friday closed the Maamba-Batoka road after flash floods washed away a bridge at Sinakasikili.

Ministry of Works and Supply permanent secretary Lieutenant Colonel Bizwayo Nkunika announced in a press statement that traffic to and from Maamba had been cut with immediate effect.

Labels: LOYCE SAILI, RDA, ROADS

posted by MrK @ 5:56 AM