A visit to the City of Lilongwe will prove to one that it surely is a beehive of activities with various road construction projects underway; a development expected to improve the traffic flow and reduce congestion in the country’s Capital.
Some of the roads are under the charge of the City council which has received K6.12 billion from government and K3 billion from Roads fund administration (RFA).
A quick snap of some of the roads undergoing a facelift are the Mchesi-Area 23 market road at the tune of K1.6 billion, K1.4 billion for the Mtandire-Airwing road and the Area 25C to Dzenza at K800 million.
About 19.3 kilometres of roads are planned for upgrading and rehabilitation using government funds while K4.5 billion from RFA is for upgrading of 5.4 kilometre of roads and 4kms for rehabilitation.
Further, the Council is also rehabilitating the Area 49 Gulliver road, Kauma and Old town bus depot roads with Dika Construction having commenced on 18th November 2021 with a proposed completion date of 15th August, 2022.
Master Construction is rehabilitating the Area 23/Mchesi road at a contract sum of K1.6 billion the works having commenced on 14th March 2022.
The projects are under the supervision of PJK & P Consulting Engineers and L Gravam consulting engineers.
The overall progress rate for the city roads is at 67 percent with the Mtandire one having a progress rating of 11 percent as it has just started.
Dzenza and Kauma roads are almost at 90 percent completion with works at Dzenza estimated at 75 percent
The Lilongwe City Council noticed speedy progress on rehabilitation of the Area 23 road by Master Construction as within a space of four months, the contractor has achieved 79 percent completion rate.
During a tour of the projects, Council officials cited shortage of cement, traffic management, delay in importation of bitumen and relocation of services such as ESCOM poles and water supply pipes as some of the reasons behind the delays.
Lilongwe City Mayor Councilor Richard Banda stated that he is impressed with the progress made on the construction works.
“I know that the congestion which we had in the city for the previous years it will be reduced now and also the face of Lilongwe it will also change automatically.
“It’s my appeal to the residents that they should take the ownership of these projects which are within the city. You can see here in Mtandire there is this project which the people have been supporting the city council to demolish some of their buildings which were along the road”.
