Stephen Kapambwe
8 May 2004
A LARGE part of Western Province is sandy which makes road construction difficult because of the loose sands.
And a number of roads in the province are either bad or have been eroded. Despite this, the Government is determined to find suitable material to conquer the Kalahari sands and construct an all-whether road network that can service and improve economic activities on the Barotse Flood Plain, in addition to linking the province to Namibia via Sesheke, Livingstone and Katima Mulilo.
Has the Government scored any successes yet?
That was the question Secretary to the Cabinet, Leslie Mbula, tried to answer when he conducted an-on-the-spot inspection of the roads infrastructure in the province.
He was accompanied on the tour of duty by officials from the planning department of the ministry of Works and Supply.
Mr Mbula's first assignment was the Mongu-Kalabo road being built by Consolidated Contractors of Kuwait.
Mr Mbula, who was forced to abandon his vehicle in preference for a boat during the inspection, said the contractor who had spent three years on the site appeared to have failed to defeat the floods on the plain.
Local people told Mr Mbula that the road was a non-starter because whenever the rainy season approached, floods caused by the Zambezi River bursting its banks washed away the road.
They urged the Government to curtail the project and re-direct the funds being used to other viable areas of the economy in the province.
But Mr Mbula informed the local people that the Government was analysing alternative ways of concluding the project.
"This is a matter which is being discussed nationally because we need to find a way of constructing a road that will stand the weather in the area," he said.
He said the way the road has been constructed needed improving to make it withstand the wind and water which were the two major enemies of roads in the province.
Mr Mbula said engineers and consultants working on the project had approved ineffective plans that exposed the road to constant flooding.
He said as a result of the bad plans, the contractor was ignorant about what to do with the road, saying there was need for the road base to be raised and its embankments reinforced with concrete and steel.
Mr Mbula further directed the provincial roads engineers in Mongu to examine the Hook Bridge on the road after he found that gullies had started eroding the base of the structure.
From the Mongu-Kalabo road, Mr Mbula switched his attention to Mongu-Senanga road where deep gullies projecting from the Barotse plain had encroached onto the highway in two places.
Giant waterlogged potholes riddled a 37-km stretch of the road.
But the entourage had to abandon the trip after discovering that floods had washed away a section of the Senanga-Kalongola road leading to Senanga Boma.
The group was surprised to find a strong water current flowing through a wide chasm where the road had been. A visual assessment of the situation revealed that the depression was deeper than an average man's height.
Mr Mbula expressed shock when he saw local men swimming across the gulf to get to the other side of the road.
Senanga district commissioner, Fabian Musialela, informed Mr Mbula that the road had been swept away by floods that reached the plain in February.
He warned that although the rainy season was drawing to an end, floods were expected to rise in the district after rain water from Angola reached the flood plain.
"The problem we have right now is that water from Angola through Lukulu is still coming. So we expect water levels to actually increase," he said.
Mr Musialela told Mr Mbula who was enroute to inspecting a malfunctioning pontoon at Kalongola that as a result of the state of the road, Sesheke-bound traffic was no longer able to reach the pontoon at Kalongola.
He said an old double-engine pontoon that ferried people and traffic between Kalongola and Senanga Boma on the Zambezi River was no longer able to manage the 19-km journey because of damage on one of its engines.
Asked what happened to a pontoon that was donated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mr Musialela said that the donated pontoon just worked for two days after it was commissioned.
"The pontoon which was donated to us through the UNHCR just worked for two days after the day of commissioning. So we channeled a report through the permanent secretary and the provincial permanent secretary is aware of that," he said.
Mr Mbula later visited Muoyo village in Nalolo constituency where villagers had launched a project to control land degradation using Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) resources.
The villagers whose land had been defaced by giant gullies caused by the advancement of the flood plain were mounting retaining walls to contain the degradation.
Barotse Royal Establishment Induna Motto, Ben Mushewa, described what the villagers were doing as progressive.
"Our plan is that when we have earth-moving equipment, we shall try to cover the depressions," he said, indicating that one of the gullies measuring five metres across and about eight metres in depth might lead to the collapse of a palace belonging to Litunga La Mboela, an old woman of royalty who is also called Makwibi.
Addressing journalists at the end of the tour, Mr Mbula said:
"The picture of the roads infrastructure in Western Province is very bad. The roads infrastructure has really degenerated very badly."
He appealed to the provincial roads engineers and the roads inspectors in the province to conduct regular checks and repair any noticeable damage before the situation became irredeemable.
He warned that if left unattended to, the effects of the aging roads would lead to total collapse of the infrastructure.
"Provincial roads engineers and roads inspectors should ensure constant inspection so that any small damage is mended before it is too late.
"If you look at Mongu-Senanga road, it has really been destroyed especially a stretch of some 37 km. The rest of the road seems to be all right. But we must ensure that we do not wait until it is completely damaged," he said.
Mr Mbula said the Government should aim at improving the road network in the province so that places are accessible all year round, adding that ultimately, Western Province must be linked to Namibia through Sesheke, Livingstone and Katima Mulilo to stimulate economic growth.
He emphasised that although roads contracts were sealed in Lusaka, contractors, roads designers and other experts involved should consult local people on how work should be done because they knew how devastating the water was.
The picture of the roads infrastructure in Western Province might be bad.
But Mr Mbula is as optimistic as Vice-President Dr Nevers Mumba who told Mongu residents recently that the New Deal Administration was committed to improving not only the roads, but water and air transport in the province.
Dr Mumba said Government was likely to activate its intentions, especially now that Parliament had passed the 2004 national Budget.
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