Going down the drain, the proverbial preventable losses, is a common tragedy on Malawi’s roads.
You certainly have seen roads without drainage and the pits sanitised as potholes where billions go down the drain due to endless patchwork.
Near Kawale Bridge on the Area 23 Road in Lilongwe, someone blocked a drain to create a crossover to his or her roadside shop.
The blocked runoff cuts the recently repaired road, opening potholes only smaller than the ponds deepening near a second-hand vehicles’ market in Biwi Triangle nearby.
Choked waterways continue to ruin the country’s road network, as rainwater strays into highways.
Runoffs dump silt that narrows busy roads.
Debris has clogged an entire lane on the Diamphwi section in Dedza along M1 and near Banana in Bangwe in Blantyre on the Robert Mugabe Highway between Limbe and Mulanje.
Motorists have no time to blink as they scramble for a constricted lane on the collision course.
Associate professor Ignatius Ngoma, from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, says runoffs weaken a critical layer beneath tarmacs, causing potholes.
“The best practice in pavement engineering is to keep moisture or water away from the road structure,” says the civil engineer.
He splits bitumen roads into four layers that carry the load from vehicles and keep moisture away.
“The other critical feature is the side drain, which takes the water from the road surface and surroundings to the nearest natural waterway to ensure the road structure remains dry,” he explains.
The side drain, which measures at least 0.75 metres deep 0.75 metres, keeps roads stable.
When a pavement falls short of these specifications, water enters causes the road structure to disintegrate, crack and develop potholes, Ng’oma warns.
Official situation
The effects of neglected drainage haunt travellers nationwide.
On Mugabe Highway, formerly Midima Road, earth-choked drainage diverts runoffs to accumulate on the road surface.
In BCA Hill residential zone in Blantyre, runoffs have swamped the drains, leaving the road with jagged edges.
Between Bangwe Weaving Factory and Banana, neglected potholes have graduated into sizeable ponds within two years.
As minibus drivers dodge the pits, disgruntled commuters announce: “Tikudutsa mu dera la olmekezeka a Sipika [We are passing through the constituency of the Speaker of Parliament Sameer Suleman].”
Back in Lilongwe where the Speaker calls for order in the House that debates national budgets, poor drainage speaks of the widening divide between national standards and the roads authorities often travel.
In the capital city, the ever-flooding Biwi-Area 36 road passes near the Construction Industry Regulatory Authority (Cira) headquarters.
From Monday to Friday, officials, who enforce the dos and don’ts in the construction sector, watch their vehicle tyres splash the water or burst after ramming into escalating potholes.
“Construction projects are high-capital investments and government needs to balance between providing infrastructure that can guarantee services even at a minimum cost and no service at all,” says Cira acting corporate affairs officer Lyford Gideon.
He reckons this is the major reason some roads lack drainage.
“Where the roads have protection works such as drainage, responsible departments do not carry out maintenance works,” he laments.
However, poor drainage also exposes falling standards and postponed maintenance.
Wasted billions
Cira is developing the Malawi Infrastructure Development Management Systems (Midmis) to improve how various players manage infrastructure throughout its lifecycle.
The system includes operations and maintenance platforms to ensure relevant authorities perform timely maintenance of public structures, including roads.
Also in the offing is an infrastructure maintenance strategy to enhance how government ministries, departments and agencies plan and maintain infrastructure.
Recently, the Roads Authority (RA) announced a K96 billion periodic maintenance of the M1 from Lilongwe to Blantyre, where President Peter Mutharika bemoaned enduring backbreaking bumps.
Much of the task, the authority says, involves fixing potholes and drainage.
The RA response comes amid rising public uproar, backed by the President’s lamentations.
However, the billions going down the drains when poor drainage opens potholes that call for multi-billion maintenance, remains unquantified.
Construction costs vary due to a number of factors, including terrain and location, engineers say.
Information available on RA website shows that the rehabilitation of Chidzanja Road in Lilongwe cost K30 million per kilometre.
Similalrly, the 30km Chitipa-Ilomba Road was originally budgeted at K34 billion, representing K1.13 billion per kilometre.
As sticky issues with road drainage remain neglected, billions keep going to waste.
