9 road projects face audit

Roads Authority (RA) has granted Centre for Democracy and Development Initiatives (Cdedi) permission to inspect contractual agreements of nine road projects in accordance with the Access to Information (ATI) Act.

RA acting chief executive officer Engineer Francis Dimu has granted the permission following a demand letter Cdedi executive director Sylvester Namiwa wrote on March 9 2022 requesting the same as part of its public infrastructure monitoring project.

Cdedi first wrote RA on February 23 2022 requesting the contractual agreements, but since there was no response from the authority, the organisation through its lawyers Taulo and Associates on March 9 2022 gave a 15-day ultimatum for RA to release the documents.

In his brief letter dated March 15 2022, Dimu says the documents are ready to be accessed at the organisation’s convenience.

He said: “You are hereby notified that the information is ready, you may come to the Roads Authority and inspect the documents at any time convenient to you. Should you wish to get the documents away, you will have to get them photocopied at your own cost.”

The nine roads are the Jenda-Edingeni (Chindoka-Embangweni) Road being constructed by China Railway No. 5, Mzimba-Mzarangwe Road being constructed by Zhejiang Corporation, Malomo-Ntchisi Road and Kenyatta Drive, both being constructed by China Civil Engineering and Kapiri-Mkanda Road being constructed by Unik Construction.

Others are the Ntcheu-Tsangano-Neno-Mwanza Road (Mwanza-Neno side) being constructed by China Geo Engineering Company, Nsanama-Nayuchi and Nsanje-Marka roads both being constructed by China Railway No. 20, and Karonga-Songwe Road being constructed by Zhejiang Provincial Transportation Engineering Construction Group.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Namiwa said they are delighted that RA has granted them permission to audit contractual agreements on the road projects.

RA becomes the second public institution after Northern Region Water Board to grant Cdedi permission to audit public infrastructure projects.