Lilongwe road works rated poorly
The Roads Funds Administration (RFA) yesterday expressed disappointment with the quality of the works on most of the road upgrading works in Lilongwe City that cost taxpayers K2.7 billion.
RFA, whose representatives toured the projects alongside Lilongwe City Council (LCC) officials, including mayor Desmond Bikoko, said it was not impressed as some of the roads are bumpy with poor or non-existent drainage systems and many of them have already faded less than six months after construction.
Speaking after the tour, RFA board vice-chairperson Matthews Chikankheni said the quality of the roads leaves a lot to be desired.
He said: “The roads are of poor quality because they have a number of problems, but let me say that as RFA, there is no value for money.”
Explaining the rated shoddy works, one of the contractors, Mohan Krishnan, chairperson of Plem Construction, said they only worked according to the terms of their contract with the city council.
He said the agreement was to surface the roads with cape seal which is of lower quality as opposed to asphalt surfacing which is of higher quality.
Said Krishnan: “Unlike in Mzuzu and Blantyre city councils, in Lilongwe the works were undertaken as per the contract specifications; hence, these problems. But had we surfaced the roads with asphalt, we could have better roads such as the ones in Mzuzu and Blantyre.”
Bikoko attributed some of the problems to lack of supervision saying in the next phase of the project the council will ensure this is followed.
The toured roads included Biwi Road which connects to Chidzanja Road, Area 50 Road and NCIC to Ngwenya Road.
The road that was of poor quality was the NCIC to Ngwenya Road constructed by Plem Construction. n
