By: Peter Chola Mwanalesa
One area that President Edgar Lungu has scored high marks is infrastructure development, and roads remain on the top rung of his social-economic ladder.
Today, President Lungu will commission the newly constructed Munali bypass.
The Lusaka Decongestion Project (LDP) aims at redesigning the major road network, with a view to reducing traffic jams, travel time, travel distances and saving precious fuel.
AFCONS International, an Indian firm, has been contracted to build the roads, fly-over bridges and overpasses at a cost of US$389mn co-financed by the Government of the Republic of Zambia (15%) and Exim Bank of India (85%).
The 36- month programme has created jobs for around 1,000 Zambians, in line with the country’s employment drive.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the project took place on April 12, 2018 by President Edgar Lungu and Indian President Shri Ram Nath Kovind.
Last few years along the line has seen a massive change in Lusaka roads, with many of them transformed into four lanes, thus facilitating the easy flow of traffic, enhancing movement of people and indeed the conduct of business.
Scope of works include construction, rehabilitation and widening of 120.7 km of roads.
The project also includes improvement of nine junctions along with four new fly-over bridges.
Today, three bridges are already operational on Kafue Road, Arcades roundabout and Munali Roundabout.
One of the main features of the project is a new outer ring road from Kafue Road near Makeni area to the new Mumbwa Road.
It stretches to Lusaka West and joins the Great North Road on Chikumbi road in Kabwe and is dubbed the ‘Lusaka West Ring Road’ which has since been opened to traffic and has become the new highway for heavy goods trucks, easing traffic within the Central Business District (CBD).
A less congested CBD entails fast moving haulage (including inter-country) from Livingstone in the south to the Copperbelt in the north.
Other salient features of the project encompass:
• Dedicated bus lanes in the middle of the road
• Modern street lights to be installed • Some roads such as Kasangula, Lake, Mwapona, Nangwena, Alick Nkhata,, Munali- Mutumbi, Kamloops and Buyantanshi to be extended to four lanes
• Ben Bella, Kafue, Great East (from Kabwe roundabout to Palm Drive), Independence and Kalambo Roads are being extended to six lanes
• Further road expansions are being made at the Church-Cairo junction, Kabulonga roundabout, High Court roundabout, Longacres roundabout and Mosio-Tunya road
Statistics indicate that Zambia has more than 780,000 cars, with Lusaka accounting for 60%, representing around 480,000 cars.