Africa-Press – Eswatini. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport introduced a project that speaks to the people.
The Rehabilitation and Maintenance of the Feeder Roads Network and Rehabilitation of Armcos and Culverts is one of the programmes that address the needs of an ordinary liSwati. It is in line with the decentralisation policy for which we advocated for its implementation. Feeder roads are also called slip road, frontage road or side road. They are very important. They link businesspeople to the urban markets.
In the current financial year, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport received E100 million for the rehabilitation and maintenance of feeder roads. Government had so far utilised E290 million for the same project. The country’s feeder roads are in a terrible mess. The company that won the tender to pave the main roads with the chemical stabiliser known as probase did not include the upgrading of feeder roads in their tender scope.
When Inyatsi Construction (Pty) Ltd had won a tender to build a road; it goes an extra mile by attending to community needs. I have observed that Inyatsi Construction (Pty) Ltd rehabilitates include the feeder roads in its programme. Brothers and sisters, the country’s highways and freeways are useless if the feeder roads are neglected.
Seasons
During rainy seasons, thousands of emaSwati are unable to reach their work stations on time because the feeder roads are slippery. Due to inclement weather, many of our people cannot get to hospital. It’s a pity when they cannot honour routine medical appointment. I have personally seen teachers unable to drive through muddy road to school. I can only urge Neal Rijkenberg, the Minister of Finance, to ensure provision of sufficient budget for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to rehabilitate the feeder roads.
I have seen bad roads in the Shiselweni region. Outside Mbabane, I have travelled on extremely terrible roads. Pupils and teachers from Ntabande Anglican Primary School are struggling to get to school during rainy seasons.
The Ntambande Anglican Primary School road is very important in terms of the country’s economic development in the areas of education and agriculture. It leads to commercial farms that produce beef for the Mbabane corridor.
Trucks are unable to reach the workstation because the road is slippery. There are so many example of such roads across the country.
I urge Rijkenberg to enlist the issue of the side roads in his book of priority projects. These roads serve as a traffic feeder to the more important ones – the highway and freeways. I have realised how teachers leave their vehicles five kilometres away from their schools. They have to sweat it out to reach school. On the other hand, communities find it difficult to access health facilities because the footbridges haven’t been rebuilt. The roads leading to the clinics are muddy.
As a result, bus drivers have to navigate through mud-covered hills. Frustrated people, mainly in the rural areas, get off the bus about 10-15km away from the clinics. Sick people have to walk long distances to these health facilities. Rain finds them on their way to hospital. They have to duck and dive thunder and lightning.
Budget
What has been frustrating quite often is to see a road, which could be upgraded with a meagre budget of E150 000, not being attended to by the government that collects taxes from the people. Goverbnment can rehabilitate hundreds of frontage roads with a budget of E30 million. I know how it frustrates the people to travel on muddy roads. I still insist on a flexible budget to fix these side roads and I hope emaSwati would be given an ear this time.
We have been talking about poor service delivery for quite sometime and we can only pray that God touches the hearts of the decision makers to do better in 2024. I must say now and again that feeder roads play a huge part in the economic development of the country.
Road infrastructure investment influences economic growth through a direct productivity effect that arises from roads being an input in the production process of many goods and services.This input relates to the cost of moving goods by road between their places of production and final points of consumption. Therefore, the feeder roads are as important as the gazetted public roads.
The World Economic Forum states that roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. It says by linking producers to markets, workers to jobs, students to school, and the sick to hospitals, roads are vital to any development agenda. Officially opening of the 4th Session of the 11th Parliament, His Majesty King Mswati III pointed to the fact that transport infrastructure remained the key driver of economic and community development.
Ingwenyama said he was concerned about the negative impact that the rainfall has had on the roads and bridges, causing an inconvenience to motorists and all road users.
The King said the estimated cost to repair damages caused by the excessive rains stood at E150 million. He assured the nation that government and its agencies had developed a comprehensive maintenance and rehabilitation programme to restore normality as soon as reasonably possible.
Improvements
His Majesty pointed out that the improvements that had been done in the rural areas by introducing the pro-base technology and the single seal approach to road paving, has also contributed to the improvement of the country’s road network, including all weather accessibility. He said government would continue with her programme of fixing the damaged roads.
As much as it was a good initiative by the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini to consider pro-base for road paving in the rural areas, but the company that won the E1.6 billion for the road network improvement is yet to convince emaSwati that it is up to the task. The roads are collapsing. The potholes are as dangerous as a knife.
Paving the feeder roads can put Eswatini on the world map in terms of a good road network that is linked to the industries and markets across the country.
If were government, I would put on hold the construction of the new Parliament valued at E1.7 billion and invest in road infrastructure. I am not talking about urban roads only. I am talking about road network connectivity that will unite emaSwati and reorganise their trading patterns. The road network, as it were, is disjointed as the roads don’t link to each other.
I have realised that this country is rich but poor. We have resources that can better our lives but the thinking and planning remain poor, a total obstacle to development. It is a huge challenge for a farmer in Lavumisa to travel on the dirt roads to supply goods to buyers at Big Bend. I hope the King’s speech on road infrastructure will be taken into good use. We want action, not promises. We can’t live like this anymore. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport has a lot on its plate. There is nothing the Roads Department under Vincent Buhle Dlamini can do if it does not get an adequate budget for improvements of roads.
Responsibility
I have trust in Dlamini. Whenever I talk to him, he strikes me as a public officer dedicated to his job. It is then the responsibility of Cabinet to work collectively towards the resourcing of the Roads Department or rather the Roads Authority. I want to see a large sum of money reserved for the improvements of feeder roads countrywide.
The Mission Statement for the Roads Department under the Ministry of Public Works and Transport is to provide, maintain and improve a safe reliable and environmental sustainable road network that will stimulate sociology-economic development, job creation and reduced road user costs.Its vision is to become the most essential government department, strategically responding to national challenges of the road network in the kingdom and be viewed as such by all stakeholders.
Its policies and goals are to study, analyse, design, upgrade, construct and maintain the national road network.
The Road Department carries out those functions through a combination of professional services and in-house personnel and equipment. I am thrilled to learn that the Roads Department made the following commitments and undertakings its mission statement –
There is no need for bad roads as the country’s blessed with a capacitated human resource. Indeed, we have the expertise in the country and we are proud of this achievement. Finally, I am looking forward to a budget that addresses the issues of feeder roads.
Source: TIMES
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