MCA targets to complete 300km roads in 3 years
The clock on Malawi’s $350 million Transport and Land Compact under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) started ticking on May 6 2024 when the contract officially entered into force, with no grace period guaranteed.
But Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)-Malawi, the local implementing unit for the country’s second compact, says it is keen to beat the deadline and complete the projects in three years.
The compact, which President Lazarus Chakwera and United States of America-based MCC chief executive officer Alice Albright launched in Lilongwe yesterday, has three main components targeted at enhancing land-based productivity in the country’s beneficiary seven agricultural districts.
In an interview on the sidelines of the launch, MCA-Malawi chief executive officer Dye Mawindo said he was confident that they will complete the construction of four roads at a combined length of 280 kilometres (km) in three years, which will be way ahead of the five-year compact period.
“So far, we have done more than what we had done at this time in the first [energy] compact. We are projecting that by the fourth year of the compact we will have finished constructing the roads,” he said.
Mawindo said awarding of contracts is expected at the end of this year and, since it will coincide with the rainy season, contractors will be expected to mobilise and set up site camps to break the ground soon after the rains.
The components of the MCC Compact II include the construction of four roads at a cost of $245 million that includes over 285km tarmac roads and over 300km upgraded earth roads.
It also includes $44 million land reforms in seven councils benefiting from the road projects and city councils to improve land- based revenue collections, and $8.5 million private sector support project.
In her address, Albright, who heads the United States Government agency that finances development in eligible low income countries, said MCC has granted Malawi financial support worth $700 million with an estimated economic impact touching 12 million Malawians through enhanced productivity.
However, in an interview later, she stressed that the future of the compact hangs on the country’s sustenance of eligibility status, saying performance benchmarks will be monitored in areas of governance, human rights, economic management, democracy and investing in people, among others.
Said Albright: “All the countries we work with have to be eligible at the beginning to qualify for MCC funding. And then, over the course of the work, we continue to monitor the ongoing eligibility.”
According to Mawindo, with a score of 18 out of 20 on the scorecard, Malawi was the highest among the countries that qualified for assessment.
He also said in the first compact, the country’s implementation performance saw it utilising 99 percent of the funds by the deadline, which was again the highest among countries that have implemented MCA compacts.
The President said his frequent travels to the US led to the launch of the second compact, hitting out at his critics for not seeing the bigger picture.
The four corridor roads to be constructed under the contract are Mkanda – Mwase Road in Mchinji and Kasungu, Chileka-Likuni in Lilongwe, Chamtulo-Mkutumula in Mangochi and Ntcheu, and Euthini-Rumphi in Mzimba and Rumphi and they have a combined distance of 285.3 kilometres.
