IT is often said, “where a good road goes, so does development.”
It is evident that one of the biggest hindrances to Zambia’s development has been a poor road network especially in the rural areas where the majority of the poorest of Zambians live.
This cannot be explained any better than looking at what has happened in the country where the most developed places boast of, not just good roads, but decent roads networks.
While urban areas in Zambia can point to some roads, rural Zambia tells a different story with some areas having just one decent road and that road would be one that just passes through to link to the next town.
Meanwhile, several other inner roads that have a more critical economic value remain in a bad state and thereby choke the delivery of goods to the wider market.
The World Bank says roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. By linking producers to markets, workers to jobs, students to school and the sick to hospitals, roads are vital to any development agenda.
In today’s edition of the Times of Zambia, we carry a story on works beginning on damaged sections of the 74km road stretch between Monze and Niko in Namwala.
It is a known fact that Namwala has one of the highest concentrations of cattle in the country and the need for the cattle, beef and various meat products to reach the market cannot be over-emphasised.
The works on the road would ease the troubles of doing business and also lessen the costs of production.
Works on such roads is just one of the many examples that the Road Development Agency (RDA) need to focus on in a bid to make Zambia better as the economic value chain of such roads has a bigger impact on the citizens.
The other interesting part of the project is that the RDA has decided to engage the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to work on the roads and going by past experiences where roads were over-priced, the use of the ZNS would save millions of Kwachas in taxpayers’ money.
According to RDA Chief Executive Officer George Manyele, these works, once done, would enable local communities to use the road to access services such as education, health and to deliver farming inputs.
This is as it should be and our hope is that the RDA sticks with this direction and avoid departing from the plan of taking the country forward through such economic strides.
The works on the Monze-Niko Road should not be an isolated case but must be a direction that the RDA should take to ensure works on several other feeder roads across the country that are begging for a touch-up get worked on.
The story coming from these same works that the road became impassable after the onset of the rains makes for sad reading because a country close to 60 years of independence has to be better prepared for such eventualities.
Mr Manyele said in view of the adverse weather conditions due to climate change, authorities would pay attention to design for roads that were prone to being washed away or overtopped.
We are happy to hear him say roads would now be built to withstand the effects of climate change.
This is the forward thinking that is needed so such problems do not become seasonal.