Road rehabilitation programme launched

The Zambian government has launched a 10-year US $1.6 billion project to refurbish its road network. "The programme, which is the second phase of the Road Sector Investment Programme (ROADSIP II), will target capacity building and rehabilitation of the country's core road network of about 40,000 km," Watson Ngambi, director of the roads department told IRIN. ROADSIP's first phase was launched in 1998 and ran until last year, at a cost of $520 million. The first phase helped to return at least 60 percent of Zambia's roads to good condition and achieve maintainable levels of usefulness. Ngambi said the government had raised some of the funds internationally for the second phase of the programme, which will run until 2013, but was also hoping to raise a portion of the money through various domestic taxes. Funding commitments have been received from the World Bank, the European Union, Germany, the Japanese International Corporation Agency and the African Development Bank (ADB), among others. The Road Development Agency, the Road Transport and Safety Agency and the National Road Fund Agency will oversee the rehabilitation programme, which includes the upgrading of some existing dirt roads. Zambia has 8,500 km of gravel road, 21,680 km of dirt road and about 30,000 km of community road networks, comprising tracks, trails and footpaths.