Roads Fund in K300bn rehabilitation plan

Roads Fund Administration (RFA) says it has budgeted K300 billion this year for maintenance and rehabilitation of roads nationwide after years of limited resources that left large sections of the network deteriorating.

RFA chief executive officer Stewart Malata announced the plans on Friday in Lilongwe when he led his team to a meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Land, Transport and Public Infrastructure to explain how the fund will raise resources and restore roads that lawmakers noted had gone “more than three years” without proper maintenance.

He said K100 billion of the allocation will go towards routine maintenance and rehabilitation across the country while K50 billion is earmarked for repairing damaged sections of the M1 between Lilongwe and Blantyre.

Malata said the country’s four city councils will receive K40 billion to rehabilitate urban roads while municipal councils will share K11 billion for similar works.

RFA has also set aside K15 billion for emergency road works while additional resources will support construction of new toll gates at Nalupa on the Lilongwe-Salima Road, near Nkhamenya in Kasungu on the Kasungu-Mzuzu M1, near Namitete on the Lilongwe-Mchinji Road and along the M5 aka Lakeshore Road.

Malata attributed the improved funding outlook to the government’s decision to revive the Automatic Pricing Mechanism for fuel, saying it has unlocked the flow of fuel levy proceeds to RFA.

He said: “The new administration decided to implement the Automatic Pricing Mechanism and that has unlocked the flow of fuel levy into the fund.

“This has enabled us to present a K300 billion budget for one year, something that has never happened before. But it is meant to partly recover lost time after nearly two and a half years without proper road maintenance.”

Malata said the situation was worsened by non-remittance of the road maintenance levy in the fuel pump price whose arrears hit K256 billion as retailers did not remit the same to Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) for two and a half years because they channelled the resources to covering losses following the depletion of the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF).

In a related development, Roads Authority (RA) says it has lined up 85 contracts for construction and rehabilitation works under the programme.

RA chief executive officer Engineer Ammiel Champiti said the procurement process is at an advanced stage, with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority having cleared the contracts and some expected to be awarded this week.

Projects to be implemented include Masasa-Golomoti-Monkey Bay Road, periodic maintenance of the M1 and ongoing works on the Chapananga-Mwanza Road as well as Lilongwe-Chipini Road.

Among other projects, Champiti said that in Blantyre the projects include upgrading the Lunzu-Kameza-Kandodo Corner shop Road, construction of a traffic interchange at Kameza and rehabilitation of the Chileka-Kameza Road.

Road Safety Alert Foundation executive director Joel Jere has since welcomed the initiative, saying poor road conditions have contributed to rising road accidents in recent years.

Parliamentary Committee on Transport chairperson Dumisani Lindani also said the allocation offers hope for improving the country’s deteriorating road network.

In 2023, the Malawi Congress Party administration suspended the use of Automatic Pricing Mechanism in a bid to keep fuel pump prices low. However, the decision backfired as the PSF was depleted and importers stopped remitting road maintenance levy to RFA, leaving the institution with no resources.

The political decision to maintain artificial pump prices led to a build-up of arrears, including K1.29 trillion owed to fuel importers and K593 billion in unremitted levies to government institutions.