Africa-Press – Angola. The asphalting work on National Road 120 (EN-120), which connects the village of Nkoko (Mbanza Kongo) to the municipality of Nóqui, province of Zaire, over a length of 105 kilometres, will be concluded within 12 months.
The guarantee is from the Minister of Public Works, Urban Planning and Housing, Carlos Alberto dos Santos, speaking to the press this Saturday, at the end of his three-day working visit to the province of Zaire.
He said he was satisfied with the progress of work on this national road that also gives access to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose contract, which started in 2020, includes the construction of two permanent bridges over the Luvo and Mpozo rivers.
He announced that in the coming days a technical team from the Angola Engineering Laboratory (LEA) will arrive in the province, to assess the reliability of the approximately 50 kilometers of road already paved and the consequent opening to road traffic.
He explained that part of the road will be made available to users from the Mpala village center to the village of Nóqui, as well as another in the opposite direction, that is, from Mpala to Nkoko.
He referred that the measure aims to reduce the constraints that motorists encounter in the alternative routes opened for this purpose, while waiting for the final conclusion of the work.
He underlined that, in the light of the road plan, the Executive will continue to favor asphalt treatment on national roads, as the roads that connect the communes to the municipal headquarters will be made on land and with permanent maintenance.
The minister also spoke of the maintenance works on the Mbanza Kongo/Luvo section which are paralyzed for financial reasons, stressing that everything is being done to find a solution.
Cuimba Road / Serra de Kanda
The road section between the municipal seat of Cuimba and the mountainous commune of Serra de Kanda, over a length of more than 40 kilometres, may be intervened in the next few days.
According to the municipal administrator of Cuimba, Isabel Fineza Queba Salvador, with the visit of the Minister of Public Works, Urban Planning and Housing to the said road, the local population is optimistic about its rehabilitation.
“We hope that with the minister’s visit to our municipality, some problems that still afflict our populations will be equated, mainly in the field of roads”, he said.
The province of Zaire has a road network of 1,712 kilometres, of which 510 are paved.
Before returning to the country’s capital, the ministerial delegation visited the works of the future General Hospital of Zaire and the international airport of Mbanza Kongo, the latter under construction in Nkiende commune.
During the three-day journey to Zaire, the minister consigned the completion works on the Nzeto/Soyo road and the stagnation of ravines in the municipalities of Mbanza Kongo and Tomboco, under the supervision of the provincial governor, Adriano Mendes de Carvalho.
The delegation also noted the state of the Mbanza Kongo/Madimba road, up to the Mbridge river, bordering the provinces of Zaire and Uíge, where the authorities intend to build a bridge to facilitate the movement of people and goods between the two border regions.
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