18 Aug 2021

Rehabilitation of Serowe-Palapye Road is not planned for in the National Development Plan (NDP 11).

In response to a parliamentary question on Tuesday, Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Thulagano Segokgo, acknowledged that potholes made the road hazardous to motorists.

“But let me hasten to indicate that the sections where potholes are predominant along Serowe-Palapye road is where the road has structurally failed. Patching of potholes along sections of the road with structural failure has been a futile exercise in that the potholes emerge soon after patching,” he explained.

He said the ministry was not ignoring the presence of potholes on the road, adding however that in effort to solve the problem, they had engaged a contractor under a maintenance contract to overlay the entire road as well as reconstruct sections where it had structurally failed to ensure the road was usable and safe for both drivers and pedestrians.

“The project commenced on the July 22 this year and is planned to be complete by November next year. It is worth noting that the project was awarded on March 19, 2019 and it stalled due to litigation issues related to the award by some of the bidders,” Mr Segokgo said.

The minister indicated that the Botswana Police Service classified accidents into two categories of accidents severity and casualty injury.

He said accident statistics for the Serowe-Palapye road obtained from the police in the past five years indicated that there were 541 road accidents in terms of accident severity, out of which 24 were fatal.

“Out of the 541 accidents, 149 accidents were attributed to road potholes whilst the rest were due to other causes. For example, road surface type such as the wetness condition of the road, driver negligence, animal on the road etcetera. Out of the 149 accidents which were attributed to road potholes, three were fatal” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Segokgo said there were 339 total injuries in terms of casualty injury over the same period, out of which 30 were fatal (deaths) and 309 were non-fatal.

“A total of 65 injuries were attributed to road potholes of which 3threewere fatal (deaths) and 62 were non-fatal. Out of the 62 non-fatal injuries 13 were serious injuries and 49 were minor injuries,” he added.

Serowe South MP, Mr Leepetswe Lesedi, had wanted to know when the ministry intended to rehabilitate the Serowe-Palapye road permanently.

The MP expressed concern about the recurring danger caused by the potholes on that road and why the ministry chose to ignore hazards as well as why there was no temporary solution.

He also asked the minister to state the number of fatal and non-fatal accidents that had occurred on the said road in the last five years and what was done to ensure the road was usable and safe for both drivers and pedestrians. ENDS