Sebina Road Life Threatening

By Uyapo Kgosi
Correspondent | Monday February 11, 2008 00:00

The road runs from Sebina through Makaleng, Kalakamati, and Sekakangwe all the way to Mbalambi in the North East District. It is the size of a one-way traffic road with gaping potholes. The invisible road markings make driving difficult. The old bituminous road ends at Kalakamati and from there it's all gravel all the way to Mbalambi.

Driving there is problematic, especially during the rainy season.  A combi operator, Bakwadi Bakwadi, who does the Francistown-Masunga road says: 'We experience problems when driving on the road because it is narrow, pot-holed, no traffic lane markings and the situation worsens in the evening because of the livestock that roams the road'. Bakwadi said that the area around the road all the way to the last village has not been de-bushed and there is no cordon fence. That makes it easy for livestock to wander onto the main road precipitating fatal accidents.

'It's difficult to see an oncoming vehicle,' he says. His story is corroborated by Lydia Tapson, a 23-year-old Sekakangwe resident who said that the road is very old, and it looks as if it has never been maintained. 

'This is a sign of negligence,' she added. For Margaret Shando, a resident of Mbalambi, only two commercial combis use the Francistown-Mbalambi road because of its state of disrepair. 'There is shortage of transport. This is not good for us commuters as we have to wait long hours for the next combi to arrive,' she stated. 

The Department of Roads at the North East District Council, Masunga, referred this paper to the Ministry of Works and Transport, saying that the road is under the jurisdiction of the central government. Contacted for comment, Minister of Works and Transport, Lesego Motsumi, said: 'I don't know really. The right people to ask on this are those at the department of roads. And they are the ones with a list of all planned projects within the ministry'. An official at the Department of Roads at her ministry agreed that the road was in bad shape. He further stated that contractors will begin this week to patch up the potholes, and this, he says, will take two weeks. The gravel road from Kalakamati to Mbalambi will be graded on a monthly basis. 'The overall construction of a new road is at design level, and we promise to do our level best in the meantime,' he said.