Despite saying that they need to see the value for the money being given to the City of Windhoek, the Road Fund Administration’s boss Ali Ipinge said his institution has no say on which roads ought to be maintained within Local Authority areas.
“In terms of our mandate, it speaks to the need to contribute to efforts of the Local Authority. It does not say we will provide road maintenance of 100%. We make a contribution to their program, and that hovers between 20% to 30% of the annual maintenance budget. The identification of roads and specific road sections to be maintained depends on the LA and not the RFA,” he said.
This is despite the RFA vision to be a global leader in sustainable road infrastructure.
“There is no doubt that more needs to be done either in upgrading certain road sections in certain areas and settlements or having a team that continuously does maintenance or making sure the streets are clean. That is certainly needed but that depends on the money allocated, but our primary mandate is to fund the maintenance of the national roads
To make sure that we have safe road infrastructure in the country we extend our support to Local Authorities were a number of the road users which are contributing to the road fund. So the mandate to provide support for road maintenance in urban areas is part of that call.
But also the support towards traffic law enforcement not only in terms of the road traffic and transport Act but also in terms of the RFA Act in terms of ensuring that road users comply to traffic rules and that they drive vehicles that are roadworthy and the drivers are licensed,” he said.
Meanwhile, for traffic law enforcement N$91 million has been poured into the City by the RFA over the past five years and N$20.1 million has been channelled towards the buying of police vehicles and equipment this year.
Support has been provided for roads over the past five years to the tune of N$86.4 million while this year N$15 million has been forked out.
The RFA boss said the vehicles bought this time by the city are appropriate despite concern that wears in tear will catch up with them sooner due to poor roads in informal settlements.
On the bright side, traffic offences are on a decline and increased visibility of law enforcers is expected by the RFA.
“We would want to see a further reduction in road crashes and improved road safety within the city. We would want to see that the assets are not abused,” he said.
