Roads Authority (RA) updates have shown mixed status of progress with some road rehabilitation and upgrading projects advancing while others stalled or are yet to start.
RA chief executive officer Ammiel Champiti in an interview yesterday said rehabilitation of 47-kilometre (km) section of the M3 from Liwonde to Matawale in Zomba is awaiting approval from the World Bank.
“They [World Bank] have given us some feedback and we remain hopeful that the approval will be granted before the year ends,” he said.
In the Lower Shire Valley, Champiti said upgrading of the M1 from Thabwa Trading Centre in Chikwawa to Bangula in Nsanje is at design stage with implementation expected to start next year.
Similarly, the Thabwa-Fatima Road, also known as the East Bank Road, which branches from the M1 at Thabwa in Chikwawa and runs 60km to Muona-Fatima in Nsanje District, has also only received approval for design, he said.
Champiti further said the Mangochi-Makanjira Road is at tendering stage.
For the Mangochi-Makanjira Road, the World Bank is financing the construction of bridges while loans from financiers Opec Fund for International Development, Kuwait Fund for Arabic Development and Saudi Fund for Development are expected to support road construction.
Champiti said construction of the road from Nsipe in Ntcheu through Balaka to Liwonde is in progress alongside rehabilitation works on four lots of the M1.
The rehabilitation of the 102km section of the M1 from Kamuzu International Airport Turnoff in Lilongwe to Kasungu is now at 60 percent while the section from Kacheche to Chiweta in Karonga spanning 66km is at 45 percent.
Meanwhile, Champiti said the authority is procuring contractors ahead of the rainfall season to be on standby to attend to emergency issues as and when they emerge.
On funds for rehabilitation of roads, he said RA was allocated K24 billion in the 2025/26 National Budget and has accessed about 70 percent of the funding with K9 billion used to pay out a backlog of maintenance bills.
Speaking in a separate interview, Truck Drivers Union vice-president Francis Mkandawire said many major roads in the country, including sections of the M1 and the M5, also known as the Lakeshore Road, are in poor condition and this is expected to worsen during the rainfall season.
Last month, residents of Chikwawa decried the poor state of roads in the district and called for speeding up of rehabilitation works to smoothen mobility.
In its 2025/2026 Seasonal Rainfall Forecast issued on September 12, the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services said Malawi is expected to receive normal to above-normal rainfall, which could result in floods in some areas.
