Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Roads Fund Board (RFB) has emphasized on doing regular cleaning up of road infrastructures, mainly drainage canals to make the roads last longer and save billions of money spent on rehabilitations.
The board made the emphasis to the Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS) on Monday this week when members of the board inspected road infrastructures in three regions of Dar es Salaam, Coast and Tanga.
The members, led by the board chairman Mr Joseph Haule, inspected road maintenance projects financed by the RFB.
Mr Haule stated that accumulation of wastes in road drainage system were causing damages to the roads because they block flowing water to pass through the canals, hence causing overflow and damage to the roads.
“Failure to effectively remove wastes from canals leads to damaging the roads, thus makes the government spend a lot of money on repairs, the money which could be spent on implementing other development projects, ” Mr Haule remarked.
He disclosed the board spent over 900bn/- during the last financial year in doing maintenance of the country’s roads.
He also advised the TANROADS to ensure that it includes all needed features like culverts and drainage systems when constructing roads so as to save unforeseen costs of repairing roads.
The members of the board inspected roads whose drainage systems were under construction including Masana and Nyaushozi areas in Mbezi, Dar es Salaam.
They went further to observe construction of Mpiji River connecting Dar es Salaam and the Coast Region where there were works for constructing infrastructures to protect the bridge from effects of flooding.
On his part, the Roads Fund Board Manager Mr Eliud Nyauhenga said it was time Tanzania focused on alternative technologies on road construction to reduce the costs of renovating roads in the country.
“We have various technologies like the use of stones to construct culverts and drainage systems, this could save funds used for road repairs as these raw materials are readily available in the country,” he noted.
The road renovation inspection team that also included TANROADS Regional managers of Dar es Salaam and Coast Region also inspected construction of new Wami Bridge.
The team was impressed with the pace of the bridge construction which is fully funded by the government and whose construction will be complete in September next year, following the contractors’ request for a one year extension period.
