Dept launches roads plan

THE Department of Works and Implementation has launched the National Road Network Strategy (NRNS) 2018-2037, to improve roads and develop new economic corridors.
Secretary David Wereh said the plan was in line with the Government’s development goals.
Wereh said national roads were built 40 years ago and 80 per cent of them needed upgrading, while there was also a demand for more road infrastructure.
“Seeing the challenges confronting us and the challenges ahead, we decided that it was important for us to develop a strategy that can guide the Government, department and stakeholders,” he said.
Wereh said national roads were built in the 50s and 70s.
“There are about 30,000km of roads of which 9,000km belong to the Government,” he said.
“The traffic demand has (now) increased and the road (standards) have declined.
“The amount of funding we are receiving is low and we are sitting on a huge backlog at this stage.
“The number of traffic has increased on our main highways. “The (major) roads make up the economic lifeline of our country with two million vehicles per year,” he said.
“That prompted us to put together the national road network strategy so that we can look at a step-by-step approach to addressing this growing issue.”
Wereh suggested that “best practice” was to put about two to three per cent of the gross domestic product into road maintenance capital work programmes.
“In the past 15 years, the funding allocated was much lower than that,” he said.
“It is a critical situation and the idea of creating the NRNS (2018 – 2037) is to see that there is commitment from all of us in order to recover. The priority is maintaining and upgrading the existing roads before building new ones.”
Works and Implementation Minister Michael Nali said: “Roads play an important role in everything that we do.
“With our land mass we need roads because it provides key services.”