LCC, RDA SWING INTO ACTION
... after State House warnings over Lumumba Road
THE LUSAKA City Council (LCC) and Road Development Agency (RDA) have swiftly swung in to action to unblock and construct drainages to avert flooding near Mandevu junction on Lumumba Road.
LCC and RDA engineers swung into action on Thursday following State House’s directive to urgently unblock the drainages and rehabilitate part of Lumumba Road which had been damaged by the floods.
On Wednesday, special assistant to the President for project, implementation and monitoring Andrew Chellah undertook an on-the-spot- check of Lusaka’s Lumumba-Mandevu junction road on the backdrop of numerous persistent complaints from motorists over the damaged road and flooding.
Mr Chellah was accompanied by chief analyst for policy implementation and monitoring Joseph Mukupa when he made an impromptu tour of Lumumba-Mandevu junction to ascertain why the pot-holed road had flooded.
But after assessing the situation, Mr Chellah immediately summoned RDA director for road maintenance, William Mulusa, to explain the situation to which the RDA chief distanced the agency from the problem, saying the flooding was as a result of blocked drainages caused by illegal structures built nearby.
His counterpart LCC director of city planning Godwin Chinoya who had tough time explaining expressed ignorance about the illegal structures which include Lady Emes Primary School, some houses and a newly built filling station near Mandevu junction.
This incensed Mr Chellah who took a swipe at Mr Chinoya for ‘tolerating’ unplanned structures which were erected on the drainages system.
The visibly annoyed Mr Chellah directed that the unplanned structures be demolished, drainages be reclaimed to avoid re-oc- currence flooding of the road and immediately rehabilitate it.
Mr Chellah ordered both LCC and RDA engineers to collectively sort out the mess as soon as possible adding that the road was of economic significance to Zambia.
Both Mr Mulusa and Chinoya assured Mr Chellah that they were going to work together to ensure the issue of flooding of the road and its rehabilitation was done within this week.
Meanwhile, a check by the Daily Nation crew yesterday found that LCC and RDA engineers had swiftly responded to Mr Chellah’s directive.
The combined team mobilised and had started unblocking the drainages with materials on site in readiness for the rehabilitation of the road.
The RDA director for road maintenance disclosed that works would be carried out throughout this holiday to ensure that by next week, the rehabilitation work at the junction would have completed.
However, the alleged unplanned structures had not yet been razed.