F/town-Tonota Road a tad behind schedule � engineer
Chakalisa Dube | Thursday December 4, 2014 12:04
The Chief Roads Engineer at the Department of Roads in the North East region Letlhogela Radipata made the disclosure when addressing participants at a stakeholder seminar in Francistown yesterday.
The seminar was organised to brief the business community about the closure of some parts of the Francistown-Tonota road to pave way for the construction and upgrading of the road by the contractor China Railways Seventh Group. “Relocation of services such as electricity cables, water conveying pipes and telephone cables to pave way for construction of the road are some of the major reasons for the delay.
“We also experienced a lot of heavy rains last year which also halted the progress on the road,” he said. He however added that so far 80 percent of all services that are supposed to pave way for the construction of the road have been relocated. “We are hopeful that there will be no further delays so that we catch up and complete the road timely,” Radipata added. So far 20.68 kilometres of the south-bound carriageway road has been completed while only 1.53 kilometres of the north-bound carriageway has been completed.
In total the road construction will cover a 30 kilometres stretch of road both for the north and south carriageways. Meanwhile the closure of the Francistown-Tonota road particularly from the BMC- Bokowe area, has been postponed to next year January. The road, which was to be closed this month, will remain shut for about five months, according to Dr Ebenezer Archer of S-Tech Consultants. “We have taken into consideration that December is a busy month. If we close the road during such a busy month, business will lose out.
“Traffic would have also been uncontrollable had we closed the road during the festive season,” said the consultant. “We have also tarred some alternative roads that will be used after the closure of the main road (from the BMC Circle to the Bokowe traffic lights),” he added.
Dr Archer also said that the closure of the road will impact negatively on businesses particularly those doing trading at Nzano mall. “We however appeal to businesses to encourage their customers to use alternative roads that we have provided during the closure of the main road” he said.
The construction and upgrading of the Francistown-Tonota road, which is worth P1 billion, is scheduled to be completed by next year October.
Its construction started in October 2012 while the design was completed in 2008.The roads is meant to alleviate traffic congestion in the city.