allAfrica.com: Zambia: Luanshya-Kafulafuta Road - a Case of Shoddy Works? (Page 1 of 2)

SOME time in October 2005, Luanshya residents in the area between the turn-offs of Kabwe and Kitwe roads, bubbled in jubilation when news of rehabilitating the stretch first hit them.

The Luanshya-Kafulafuta road was finally going to receive a new face, after years of remaining dilapidated!

They were justified to rejoice: K33 billion had been set aside to upgrade the road! Soon, their appeals that had appeared to have fallen on deaf ears for so long, were to be honoured.

The New Deal Government had struck the right cord. And the cries of the people over the road, which is cardinal to them since it leads to many parts of Zambia particularly the Copperbelt towns, were soon to be over!

The project was jointly funded by the World Bank and OPEC. It soon shifted into gear and works were set off. The contract to do the road was awarded to China Henan - the company that has been renowned for doing quality road works - among many others.

When the works started, many people in the surrounding areas especially farmers, were happy because this entailed their produce would reach the markets quickly unlike the case in the past when it had to go to waste. No vehicles reached them as a result of the poor state of the road.

The contractors started working on the road in October 2005 and were scheduled to complete the exercise in November the same year. But somehow, the deadline had to be extended.

In April last year, many farmers expressed happiness that the road had finally been completed and they expected to benefit a lot from the project. However, the joy over the newly-rehabilitated road has been short-lived.

Less than a year after the road was commissioned, it has already developed some potholes and from the look of things, the road is headed for complete damage as the tar is peeling off faster than expected.

Some residents have attributed the quick wearing away of the road to the heavy-duty trucks which carry heavy loads from the Copperbelt to other parts of Zambia.

But other people have brushed that point aside saying there were other roads, which were constructed long before the Luanshya-Kafulafuta road was rehabilitated but were still intact.

They have attributed the quick damage of the road to shoddy work and use of cheap material.

"It is difficult to believe that this road is less than one-year-old since it was rehabilitated. Potholes have already started coming up and it will be worse by the end of the rainy season. "When they started working on the road, we were happy because we thought the Government had come to our rescue. We were failing to travel because vehicles were not coming here because of the potholes which were there.

"When the rehabilitation work started, we thought we were saved as we would be able to transport our produce to other parts of the country as the road was going to be in good condition. But it appears the Government just wasted money to do this road and in the next six months, vehicles will stop using it and we will get back to our old problems. We appeal to the Government to ask the contractors to come back and re-do the road before it is too late and completely damaged," said Mukolwe market chairman, Boston Kasoti.

A pastor at Acop Pentecostal church, Able Chipeteni who is also a resident of Mukolwe where the Luanshya-Kafulafuta road passes through said from the beginning, shoddy work on the road was manifested as the tar was peeling off while works were still going on.

"We asked the contractors to be serious on doing this road as we saw it being damaged while it was still being worked on, but they told us they had been given little money for the job.We also told the MP and the councillors around here about the problem but they did not pay attention.This is the road we use to go to Luanshya, Kitwe and Ndola and when it completely gets damaged, we will get back to square one," said Mr Chipeteni.

Transporter, Thomson Langeni and marketeer Gladys Kasongo said the community of the area appreciated that the Government considered rehabilitating the road but it was saddened at the bad work the contractor had put up.

"This road was not graded before resurfacing it.The same parts where there were potholes are the ones which are giving away.The contractors did not do a good job.We suffered a lot before this road was rehabilitated because we could not sell our produce to far off places.Most of our produce went to waste as we would stay four or more days on the road waiting for transport which never came because of the bad road. Now they have repaired it and it is already damaged. Something needs to be done about it," said Mr Langeni and Mrs Kasongo.

A Kafubu block farmer in Masaiti area,Bregadier General Muyunda Liboma, who said the good things when the road was being rehabilitated as he expected his crops would reach the market without any difficulty could not make any comment when approached.

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