Chakwera Blames Rampant Traffic Accidents On Corruption
President Lazarus Chakwera has reiterated his passion to fight corruption head-on, saying the evil is contributing to the heightening number of traffic accidents on the country’s roads.
Chakwera said on Tuesday, August 31, 2021 as he presided over a ground breaking ceremony for the upgrading of Mzimba Street and Kenyatta Drive–connecting Lilongwe Old Town and the City Centre–into a triple carriage way.
“Corruption is the cause of road accidents on our roads,” said Chakwera, who sounded seriously concerned. “Corruption contributes to the substandard roads that we have.
“Corruption contributes to the unauthorized vehicles that find themselves on our roads. Corruption is why we find incompetent drivers and motor-cyclists without proper training buying licenses from corrupt traffic officers. All these contribute to the number of deaths on our roads.”
According to Chakwera, he always felt bad when he of an accident occurring – a phenomenon he said was supposed to be halted by enforcing stringent measures in fighting corruption across the board.
“It is not on that with the few roads that we have we should be having such a huge number of road accidents,” Chakwera, Malawi’s sixth president, said.
Earlier, Chakwera described the project as “a fulfilment” of his promise to build a new Malawi through job creation, wealth creation, and food security.
He emphasized that investment in infrastructure was an accelerator to national development.
“The advantages of developing a strong and beautiful network of roads within and between our urban centres are many. For a start, it eases the movement of goods, services, and people, thus stimulating economic activity.
“It opens new opportunities for employment and business in many sectors. It saves lives and money by reducing the wear and tear to vehicles that is caused by roads that are poorly constructed,” he said.
Roads Authority (RA) board chairperson, Joe Ching’ani, bemoaned the sloganeering payment and procurement systems in government saying they were frustrating and impacted negatively on road projects.
Said Ching’ani: “The payment system of Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and contractors’ scrutinizing processes are some of the challenges leading to delay in payment. These processes take too long to finalize as a result frustrating the projects speed.”
According to the RA plan, the project which will include an interchange at the current Kamuzu Central Hospital Roundabout and the improvement of Sharrar Road to a two-lane road in one direction and a single lane in the other direction is being carried out by China Civils.
Roads Authority will use K19 billion for the project which has been sourced from Standard Bank and Old Mutual.
By Nyasa Times.
