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–Gwembe District Commissioner, Alice Mwiinga has expressed worry at the quality of work being put up by the named contractors working on the Siampande Feeder roads and has since appealed to relevant authorities to consider inspecting the works.
And Disaster Management Regional Coordinator, Edwin Peteli, has described the road works as shoddy.
The two contractors are Nakagea Constructions and African Bulk Earthworks, each working on a 12.5km stretch at a cost of K5,116,849.32 and K4, 665,981.01 respectively.
Ms Mwiinga, who inspected the entire 25km stretch, expressed concern that transporters of the 2013/2014 farming inputs would find it difficult to deliver inputs to the waiting farming communities in remote areas.
She said there was urgent need for the district council authorities to inspect road works to ensure the contractors improve the quality of work.
And Disaster Management Regional Coordinator, Edwin Peteli has described the road works as shoddy.
Mr Peteli, who was in the district to assess the food availability among selected communities, said the road works were below par.
He said there was need for close supervision of contractors to ensure that government money does not go to waste through shoddy works.
Meanwhile, Gwembe District Council Director of Works, Peter Madubeko, has observed that roads were difficulty to work on during the rainy season, adding that they tend to change state after it rains.
Mr Madubeko told ZANIS in an interview that the contractors had been having difficulties as the implementation of road works started in the rainy season.
He noted that no grading or graveling could be done on a wet road forcing the contractors to overrun in their initial completion dates
resulting in the contructors to request for an extension in the
implementation period.
“Both contractors’ completion dates had elapsed. Nakagea was scheduled to complete on 19th December, 2013 while African Bulk Earthworks’ completion date was due on 20th January, 2014,” Mr Madubeko disclosed.
According to the terms of the contract, both contractors were expected to do spot improvements on bad portions of the 25km Siampande stretch.
“Graveling had not been part of the contract and contractors are currently on recess, awaiting the reduction in rainfall activities,” said Mr Madubeko.
And Mr Madubeko has urged transporters of farming inputs to consider sub-contracting transporters to cover the distance they fail to reach due to the bad state of most feeder roads for bigger trucks.
He said there was no need for transporters to dump inputs far from the beneficiaries when they could sub-contract people with smaller trucks that could pass through damaged portions of the roads to ensure inputs are delivered as close to the farmers as possible.
