Cracks in the promise: Inside Zambia’s ‘political roads’
SINCE 2017, I have lived in the Mitengo suburb of Ndola which is sandwiched between the 63-kilometre road to Mufulira in the west and the sprawling Chifubu Township in the east.
For years. it has been a popular road since it links the Copperbelt on the Zambian side, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It has been a critical passage for exports and imports either through the Sakania border post, near Ndola or Mokambo a few kilometres from Mufulira.
In fact, a toll gate has just been constructed and completed especially to collect revenue from trucks that ferry copper and acid into and out of the DRC.
After independence, it was among the roads government tarred but years of neglect spurred by lack of repair led to the road falling apart forcing motorists including passenger buses abandoning the route and opted to use the longer one through Kitwe.
When I moved to begin my journalism career in Ndola, the road was still being used sparingly. But as it continued disintegrating, armed gangs took advantage and began grabbing vehicles struggling to meander around potholes. Such seized vehicles it was believed were being driven into the DRC, then Zaire.
The deteriorated security situation made things worse that the stretch was completely abandoned. So by 2017 when I moved to Mitengo, I have been several times jogging from home which is closer to Chifubu to the disfigured Mufulira road.
So when a few years back work began to reconstruct the road, I was part of the community that breathed a sigh of relief that at least the road would become useful again.
If government pronouncements are anything to go by, the rehabilitation is supposed to run though up to the Mokambo border post.
Sometime last year, one motorist told me that cracks had began emerging along the highway. I could not believe him until the next time I jogged there I began taking note. Whenever I was found myself in a situation where I attended a burial at Mitengo cemetery, I would check.
One day I drew the attention of a colleague I was driving with to the cemetery, he just said, “how can you be surprised, these are political roads”. How right he may have been?
Just a few weeks ago a bridge between Chingola and Chililabombwe just before entering the former Bancroft caved in. We were told the structure was swept away by a rain storm.
On Sunday, I jumped on bus to travel to Lusaka to attend a funeral (I actually wrote the column from the capital). I was interested in the state of the road which we hear has been done almost 70 percent or more. I may have been bad at arithmetic at school if the road had been done by even 50 percent, the results would have been visible.
The bus journey took about seven hours simply because there is no road other than stretches of patches. Some stretches are tarred, others simply gravelled with large heaps of soil. I have kept wondering whether those who have been giving figures about how much the road has been done, have actually inspected the project.
The work is not so much to blow someone’s horn over. The road which is being constructed under a mouthful called Public-Private Partnership (PPP), according to some workers, is being done by local and foreign contractors, so the workmanship is becoming a source of concern.
As these concerns are being raised, one wonders who is supposed to check these road works. In the case of the Mufulira Road which officials say is potholed in several places up to the Sakania turn off, was Copperbelt Minister Elisha Matambo simply tipped that the new road was falling apart even before completion?
In normal circumstances isn’t the minister supposed to get reports from technical people and experts about the level of work? But even the minister himself, can he tell us that all this long he had not noticed that the road was substandard? Assuming that the minister was busy, what about other government officials including councillors and other people in politics, none of them have driven along that road even up to Mitengo cemetery?
These questions need answers. Making roads is an expensive exercise they should never be accepted as political projects. What is frightening is the thought that how many of the roads under construction countrywide are political and are simply being rushed? The result of rushed roads will be fatal. Within months, they will be damaged not only by rains but vehicles especially heavy trucks. Then the country will need a lot more money to redo them.
Historically the UNIP government made more and stronger roads. President Chiluba also worked on some including Mwanawasa and Rupiah Banda. Under opposition, this government was critical of the road network by the previous government. Zambia is yet to be availed with evidence that the roads being done now are better than those did before 2021.
All the same, thanks to Minister Matambo for taking time to check the road and raise alarm over the shoddy job. After his exposé , the engineers say there was no private consultant hence the substandard workmanship.
Political roads may not need consultants but they remain not only a risk but also a drain of resources in terms of repeat works. It is not a secret that overtime, there has been alleged corruption in the road construction sector. If the government is genuinely combating corruption across the board, will heads roll in this case or politics over ride?
Hicks Sikazwe is author of Zambia’s Fall-back Presidents, Wasted Years, and Voters in Shadows. A former Deputy Editor-in -Chief of the Times of Zambia. He is currently Communications and Media Affairs Advocate based in Ndola. Comments 0955/0966929611 or hpsikazwe@gmail.com
