STATE TO WORK ON ISOKA-MUYOMBE ROAD
GOVERNMENT will soon embark on emergency maintenance of the Isoka- Muyombe road to make it passable, Muchinga Province Minister Malozo Sichone has said.
Speaking when he paid a courtesy call on Chief Muyombe Temwani 1 on Saturday, Mr Sichone said the government was aware of the poor state of the Isoka- Muyombe road and was committed to ensuring that the road was passable. Mr Sichone said the upgrading of the remaining stretch of the road had delayed due to limited funds. The minister said Government would soon release funds for temporary grading of the road to improve the road before the rainy season. Mr Sichone said the upgrading of the road to bituminous standard would resume as soon as funds were secured. He said temporal maintenance of the road would soon start and was expected to be completed before the start of rainy season. "The Isoka-Muyombe road is really in a bad state and it will become impassable during the rainy season if nothing is done to address it. "We have therefore secured some funds for emergency maintenance of the road to make it passable while government is mobilising resources for tarring of the road,"Mr Sichone explained. Mr Sichone said the government with support from World Bank had embarked on the project to grade feeder roads in rural parts of the country. "Recently, President Lungu launched the rural roads connectivity project to make road accessible and Mafinga is one of the beneficiaries of this project,"Mr Sichone said. Earlier Chief Muyombe told the provincial minister that the Isoka-Muyombe road remained a death trap and needed urgent attention. He said the bad state of the road had hindered the development of the district. The traditional leader said the cost of living had gone up because of the poor state of road through which goods from neighbouring districts are transported. Chief Muyombe also appealed to government to increase Constituency Development Funds allocation.