No funds for Freddy-affected roads

Government has said it is yet to find resources to maintain or reconstruct roads affected by Cyclone Freddy in the 2022/23 rainy season.

Tropical Cyclone Freddy Emergency Response Plan that the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) issued in March 2023, said about 405 kilometres of roads were affected, and government needed K29.58 billion to fix them.

But in an interview, Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure Jacob Hara said partners that had promised to help rehabilitate the roads have not come forth.

Said Hara: “We couldn’t get resources because there were other development partners who had assured us that they will get the resources, but they didn’t come through. We had to think outside the box to get resources so that we build back and build back better.

“As we are talking, there is green light and come early next season, that is after the rains, we should be able to go back on site and build better.”

In an interview yesterday, Mulanje, whose district commissioner David Maxwell Gondwe said the district, one of the heavily hit by Freddy, has places that will still be cut off once rains start.

Said Gondwe: “The situation has improved a little. But we still have some problems, because most of the bridges and drifts mainly in Traditional Authority Njema, around Limbuli Constituency, have not been fixed yet. Should we have early rains, it means that area will be cut off again.

“We are lobbying with government and well-wishers on that. Only big vehicles are able to pass up to Nanchidwa, the road is not good. Nanchidwa is about 20km to Muloza border, and it also connects to Phalombe. The route to Phalombe remains impassable. The Namulenga Bridge is being fixed while the Nkando Bridge still has a temporary structure.”

In Thyolo, DC Hudson Kuphanga said they have used council resources to work on damaged roads in Thyolo Central and North West as well as a drift in Thyolo North West.

“We still have an outstanding road in the area of T/A Nsabwe, it’s being looked into. The Nsuwadzi Bridge is under construction, but this one is being handled by the central government,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new study ‘From risk to resilience: Unpacking the economic impacts of climate change in Malawi’ has shown that changes to frequency and intensity of rainfall can increase maintenance costs, especially of unpaved roads.

It is a joint report of the African Climate Foundation (ACF) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), with support from the CGIAR Research Initiative on Foresight.

“Malawi may face an annual average cost of $165 million to repair its road infrastructure from climate change-related damages (that is, from precipitation, temperature, and flooding changes) if it does not take any adaptation measures.

“This translates to a 13 percent opportunity cost in total by 2050 (based on a median climate scenario) or, in other words, a lost potential of expanding the existing paved road network or upgrading the existing unpaved roads by 3 530 kilometres (km) of paved road,” it reads.

Cyclone Freddy damaged 43 roads covering about 405 km. These comprise 16 major roads, 17 secondary roads and 10 tertiary roads.