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Namibia: Floods Stretch Roads Authority Budget
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New Era (Windhoek)
30 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008
Petronella Sibeene
Windhoek
Severe damage to road infrastructure by floods has widened the funding gap in the roads sector already grappling with a serious budget deficit.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Roads Authority (RA), Erastus Ikela, said the floods have worsened the condition of roads in the country. This takes place at a time when financing is still a major challenge for the roads sector. Although he could not indicate the difference brought by the effects of floods on this year's budget, already the required rehabilitation programme shows an annual funding requirement of N$675 million to resurface 270 kilometres.
This is in line with the current rehabilitation market price of between N$2 million and N$3 million per kilometre. Ikela says uncertainties on funding have prevented the Roads Authority from preparing long-term operational plans. "By nature, roads are long-term investments and it is unfortunate that we have reached this situation of 'firefighting,'" he added. Namibia's road network has a total length of 43936 kilometres. Of this, 5810 is tarred, 24274 gravel, 210 salt, 11967 earth and 1675 proclaimed with replacement value estimated at N$16.8 billion.
The routine and periodic maintenance of paved roads including 5810 km of bitumen, 270 km of reseal works, 400 km of rejuvenation and routine maintenance such as pothole patching, crack sealing and road markings, require an annual budget of N$100 million.
For unpaved roads, the annual budget stands at N$340 million to re-gravel 1200 km of gravel roads and two million blade kilometres performed on both gravel and earth roads. About 350 km of roads in rural areas have to be constructed at a cost of N$170 million. Rural gravel roads with heavy traffic also require upgrading with bitumen and cost N$50 million annually.
"Allocation for the construction of rural access roads remain below the needs," he said. In summary, Ikela said road preservation would cost over N$1.115 billion while road development will cost N$220 million. Ikela said the overall budget inclusive of administration costs has in the past years accumulated a funding deficit of N$3.7 billion by 2007/8.
Government in its financial budget allocated N$300 million towards road maintanence. The Road Fund Administration sources additional funds through its four projects. Fuel levies bring in about 70 percent of revenue, while cross-border charges levied on foreign vehicles entering Namibia contribute 5 percent. Licence fees collected with the assistance of Namibia Transport Information System (NATIS) and other registering authorities contribute 10 percent, and a small amount comes from abnormal load charges.
Last year, the Road Fund Administration re-implemented mass distance charges (MDCs) - an initiative that was projected to generate N$100 million for the maintenance of the country's road infrastructure. But yesterday, Fund Manager of the Road Fund Administration, Desmond Basson, revealed that the exercise only yielded N$11 million. This year, the company has reduced its projected figure to N$50 million. Basson also indicated that this year, there are no plans to increase licence fees, fuel levies, cross-boarder charges and MDCs.
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Preserving the road network remains crucial to the country's socio-economic development. The vastness of Namibia demands high standard roads for efficient moving of goods and people. Ikela said studies carried out by Roads Authority have shown that despite the need to maintain roads at least every 20 years, 69 percent of the bitumen roads in the country are over 20 years or older. Another 30 percent of roads are older. Ikela attributed the backlog in road rehabilitation to years of inadequate investment. "It is only with good engineering work that we have been able to maintain our road network with so little," said Ikela.
Ikela says inadequate funding might result in a decrease in asset value of the road network. "General condition of the roads will deteriorate and the cost of operating vehicles will increase," he stated.
Ikela was speaking during the Road Fund Administration annual stakeholder consultation on its business plan 2008/9 to 2012/3.
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