Rains expose bad road planning

Staff Writer | Thursday March 6, 2014 17:13

 

The rains have exposed our below-standard engineering, particularly how our roads are designed and the storm-water drainage system, as well as the related works.

Driving around Gaborone in the last few days has been nothing but a nightmare, particularly at intersections like the Kgale roundabout, Tlokweng Road, Independence Avenue, CID South and the BURS intersection, to mention a few.  These roads have proven to be difficult to traverse whenever there is a shower in the city, as they either collect water, or develop potholes the size of a pond.  The city council is not helping the situation either, as they are never seen anywhere filling the potholes as a matter of urgency. 

For more than eight hours on Tuesday, the road leading into the Main Mall taxi rank was closed after a huge tree fell, totally blocking the road. This led to traffic having to turn back to rejoin the Queens Road, resulting in serious congestion. The tree fell just tens of meters behind the Central Police Station, and one would have thought that the police would find the urgency to go and control traffic, but that was the least of their priorities.

The other bizarre aspect of this incident is that the Gaborone City Council head office is just over hundred meters from the fallen tree, but they also took more than 24 hours to remove it.  It is high time our officers understand that some situations need proactivity than a normal-day-response.  How on earth do GCC officials allow a tree to inconvenience traffic flow when there are officers hired specifically to attend to these events?

The rainfall should have put everybody on alert and prepared to move as and when their services are required. This is the time when officers should be on the field assessing the extent of damage caused by the heavy rains, and giving advice where necessary. The officers should be in a position to respond to fire alarms, drowning, as well as fallen trees. 

Why have people become so complacent in their jobs? How did we come to this point that people just do not care? Could the answer be that our country has become a jungle where it is survival of the fittest, and that every man for himself and we share nothing. Maybe it is time we call a national pitso on national values where we should re-introspect and find out whether or not we are still on track to our desired destiny. Being in a semi-desert that we are, rain should be welcomed not cursed.