A3 road: From debt trap to death trap
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday June 19, 2023 06:00
Death trap stats
A few weeks back, an accident claimed 22 lives along the A3 road just near Marapong village. A sprinter heading to Maun from Francistown collided with a truck that was going in the opposite direction. The accident comes just less than a year after another one claimed 16 lives along the same road, near the sleepy village of Hubona. The Hubona accident involved two mini-buses and a Toyota Dyna. Over 40 people have died on the A3 since the Hubona accident in July last year.
The accidents have largely been attributed to the dreadful state of the road. Just this week another accident along the A3 road involved an 80-seater Scania bus, which claimed one life and left 41 with injuries. The bus carrying 42 occupants including the driver was travelling from Kasane to Francistown.
Late last year in Parliament, the Minister of Transport and Public Works Eric Molale told Parliament that out of 736 people who were involved in accidents that occurred on the A3 road in the last five years, 94 people died, 241 sustained serious injuries while 401 survived with minor injuries.
Molale further noted that out of the 1,085 accidents that occurred along the A3 road in the last five years, 75 were fatal, while 1,010 were non-fatal accidents.
Serowe South legislator, Leepetswe Lesedi had wanted to know plans in place to address the deplorable state of the A3 highway to bring it to a roadworthy standard. Lesedi had asked the Minister to share statistics about those who died on the A3 highway in the last five years as well as the fatal and non-fatal accidents that occurred on the road in question.
History of the A3 road problem, design life
When the Nata-Gweta legislator Polson Majaga started begging Parliament to consider rehabilitating the road many years ago, the A3 road had already surpassed its design life of 20 years. It was now prone to floods following changes in weather patterns. The most prone road sections were at Gweta, Zoroga and Nata. In 2016 the then Minister of Transport and Communications, Tshenolo Mabeo admitted that the road, which runs from Francistown to Mamuno junction, from Francistown to Maun and Maun to Sehitwa had reached its design life. Mabeo said the A3 road was planned for National Development Plan (NDP) 10 but due to economic meltdown, it was shelved. He added that the road would be considered together with other roads for inclusion in the NDP 11.
Government promises unique design for A3 (2017)
Following the inspection, then Minister of Transport and Communication Kitso Mokaila announced that the Department of Roads had been tasked to come up with a unique design for the refurbishment and reconstruction of the A3 road.
During an inspection tour, Mokaila said the ministry was working on maintaining areas that were ‘excessively’ damaged, in particular at Mathangwane village and the Nata area.
He said although maintenance would be done as a temporary measure since government took a stance to reconstruct the road, the ministry was working on something which would be cost-effective considering that it was going to take time for the road to be done completely. “Our aim is to give the road a life while we are working on the process of reconstructing the entire road,” he said.
Mokaila highlighted then that there was a team of road engineers on site, along the A3 road testing the status of its base through a troxler machine.
He said the decision on whether to start off by reconstruction particularly areas extremely damaged or re-seal some parts while awaiting the real construction project would be informed by the report.
Should the report indicate that the base was completely damaged and could not withstand the load of traffic, Mokaila said the ministry would resolve to move to reconstruction.
Majaga worried about the delay (2019)
Concerned about the road rehabilitation delay, Majaga indicated there was no hope that the road will be reconstructed as promised, something that was bothersome to the constituents.
He said despite the fact that the road leads tourists to their desired destinations, it remained neglected. Majaga argued that the government had rather opted to construct roads elsewhere in the country and not make the one in his constituency a priority. “That road is in a very bad state of disrepair, it has lots of potholes.
In fact, I am abusing the word road because it is no longer a road but something else. It’s been years since the government promised to construct this road and its delay worries constituents. My campaign was hard in that constituency because of the condition of that road. Just that they believed in my capabilities as their leader otherwise they could have voted for someone else,” Majaga told Mmegi in a previous interview.
Feasibility study, promising Chinese loan deal (2019)
In 2019, the Minister of Transport and Communications Thulagano Segokgo said the Nata-Francistown and Nata-Maun road construction projects were not included in the NDP 11 because the ministry did not have funds for the projects.Segokgo said a feasibility study, which is a requirement of the concessional loan had been concluded for consideration of the loan by the Chinese authorities.
Segokgo said it was intended that the loan agreement be concluded before the end of that year.
China had provided a P3.4 million grant in May that year to fund the A3 road’s feasibility study, in anticipation of negotiations towards the loan.
Botswana had secured a pledge of P10.2 billion in concessional loans from China after the government’s participation at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in September 2018. The Chinese government had also written off P80 million in existing debt owed by Botswana.
Debt trap, Chinese deal collapse (2020)In 2020 government dropped the proposed loan for China to fund the rehabilitation of the road after the two sides deadlocked over the terms of the agreement. It was reported that one of the sticking points of the negotiations was over the choice of the main contractor for the project.
“The Transport ministry had earmarked the possibility of securing the loan from China for the road rehabilitation but that has been withdrawn due to the terms of the loan,” Finance Ministry permanent secretary, Wilfred Mandlebe told the Parliamentary Accounts Committee in September that year.
“When we could not agree on the terms, we noted that the project was urgent and we could not go back and forth with the Chinese on the terms.
Mandlebe added that the Chinese funding was one of the possible sources of funding, but it was taking long. “The Chinese did the feasibility study and came up with a report and on that basis,
we started negotiating the terms. It was back and forth and we decided that we must fast-track the project. They had their own terms beyond the financial terms; terms such as using Chinese companies and those are things we contended with.
The deal may financially look good but it was restricted to them,” Mandlebe pointed out. At the time when the deal collapsed, government was closely scrutinising its spending and debt levels after the impact of COVID-19 on the economy.
Installation of relief culvert at Gweta (2021)
In 2021, government revealed that works to install a relief culvert at Gweta along the A3 primary road had commenced. The Ministry of Transport and Communications announced that the culvert will assist with the drainage of rainwater which normally accumulates at this section of the road, during peak rain periods.
The government also disclosed that a local contractor, Eagle Waves Holdings (Pty) Ltd had been contracted for this project at a contract sum of P1.9 million expected to be completed by March of that year. Indeed the Roads Department constructed the culvert along the A3 road in Gweta and by March 2021 it was completed at a cost of P1.8 million against a budget of P1.9 million. The government indicated that the relief culverts at Gweta were a temporary intervention.
Giving an update about the construction of the A3 road, the Assistant Minister for State President Dumezweni Mthimkhulu told Parliament in July 2021 that the technical proposal for the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) consultancy had been approved by the tender committee and financial documents for bidders were yet to be opened.
Transitional Development Plan (2022)
Late last year the government announced that it intended to spend P580 million over the next two financial years on rebuilding the 300-kilometre road. According to an appendix to the draft Transitional National Development Plan, the government intends to spend P260 million rebuilding the road in the 2023-24 and another P320 million in the 2024-25 financial year. As reported previously by Mmegi, the Nata-Maun road is part of the P8.5 billion proposed to be spent on road infrastructure projects in the next two financial years under the transitional NDP. The A3 road project amongst others is to be delivered through the use of new construction methods and technologies such as In-Situ Cold Recycling and New Gravel Stabilisation.
Both methods are relatively new and involve the use of materials already available on the older road.
Last year Molale revealed that all the bad sections of the A3 road will be reconstructed during the Transitional Development Plan. The sections of the A3 highway were Francistown-Nata, Nata-Gweta, Gweta-Phuduhudu and Maun-Toteng.
He said that pending the Transitional Development Plan, the ministry was currently carrying out routine maintenance works, which included pothole patching, edge repairs and grading where the surfacing layer has disintegrated, especially during and after the rainy seasons.
No progress, rising death toll (2023)
Following the recent horrific accidents which could have been avoided, government officials have sent condolences to the bereaved families and that is all they can do because promises have been broken and the road is still the same; poor. Over the years the government has provided temporary repairs but never returned to make permanent repairs.
The A3 is a major economic corridor to the tourism heartland and the economic hub of the Ngami District but it is still difficult to navigate and dangerous. The state of the road poses many problems for travellers which include damage to car tyres, damage to vehicles, slowing down movement and business and increasing accidents. Most people who travel this road have submitted to fate as they negotiate the potholes.
It is traumatic to traverse this road even more during rainy seasons because drivers plunge into potholes filled with water.
As taxpayers, the public had exercised their right to question officials but their cry for a facelift seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Most Batswana’s mode of travel is by road but it does not seem like the safety of road users is a priority.
As the road turns deadlier with every passing day, the need of the hour is not to do a patchwork with mud and gravel nor a fresh coat of tar but the government must take cognisance of the A3 road graveness.