Good leadership will help to slow the rapid deterioration of hinterland roads

Aug 14, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

Every rainy season we see on social and print media, trucks, minibuses and other vehicles stuck fast on our hinterland roads. Road users suffer greatly, prices for goods rise steeply and maintenance costs of vehicles skyrocket. The perennial excuse from successive governments for the bad state of hinterland roads during the rainy season is the weather; inclement weather does not allow for quick repairs to deteriorating sections of the road. While the weather is indeed a contributing factor, it is not the only one. There are two other contributing factors, all within the control of government.
The first contributing factor is that hinterland roads are very poorly maintained in the dry season by contractors, who have little or no experience in road building, but are granted contracts due to political affiliation. Obviously, if a contractor who knows nothing about road building and is trying to cut costs at every turn, the end result is a road that cannot stand up to the rigours of daily traffic during the rainy season. Take for example the Linden to Lethem Road. There are sections of this road that are underwater for the duration of the rainy season; because the road has been so poorly built, there is no way for water to be drained off the road when it rains. Which road contractor in this day and age builds a road, which does not cater for adequate drainage?
In addition, the road is littered with giant potholes and craters every few feet it seems. It just goes to show the sort of contractors we have doing road works on our hinterland roads. Then there are the troublesome sections that every year deteriorates faster than other sections. The government engineers know where these so called” hot spots” are, yet year after year, no one in the Ministry of Public Works it seems can sit down and devise a comprehensive road maintenance plan. The fact of the matter is, that once a hinterland road is properly maintained by a reputable road contractor using the correct road building material, and using the correct road building equipment, it will be able to withstand the elements better and for a longer period of time than what is happening currently.
The second contributing factor is that overladen trucks use hinterland roads with impunity contributing greatly to the rapid deterioration of hinterland roads. Yet to date, no motion scales have been installed to ensure trucks using hinterland roads are within the prescribed weight limit. As such, overladen trucks continue to get a free pass all the while damaging hinterland roads and bridges with alarming regularity. So, roads break up faster, more money has to be spent to effect repairs and the road users suffer greatly. It is a vicious feedback cycle with no end in sight.
But it should not be all gloom and doom for our road users during the rainy season. Even with heavy rainfall, there are days when the rain ceases for a bit. And as such emergency maintenance works can be carried out quickly to bad sections of the road during these breaks in rainfall. That’s why I would suggest that the Ministry of Public Works should have emergency road teams deployed to the main hinterland roads during the rainy season. Currently, when a section starts to deteriorate, no efforts are made to effect quick repairs. Instead, the road is allowed to deteriorate until it is impassable and only when the movement of goods and people are seriously threatened then you see some action being taken to get the road repaired.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that once leadership at the national and regional levels is shown by our policy makers, then the rapid deterioration of our hinterland roads can be slowed considerably.

Sincerely,
S. Fredericks

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Good leadership will help to slow the rapid deterioration of hinterland roads

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