The National Roads Authority (NRA) has now been mandated to take charge of the Greater Banjul street lighting project.

This development came in the wake of rising concerns about the precarious and fast dilapidating state of the Greater Banjul Street lights, and is part of efforts by the executive to guarantee the sustainability of national development undertakings. Speaking to this reporter at his office, Ebrima Njie, the managing director of the NRA confirmed that his institution was given the task to manage the affairs of the streetlights a week ago. He promised that NRA would do everything possible to ensure that the lights serve their purpose.

He said that people were blaming NRA for the dilapidated state of the streetlights, and pointed out that previously the project was not under the authority.  He added that now they are in charge, their immediate task is to ensure that all the lights are on and functioning as expected. The NRA boss further stated that in the long-term, his institution would work towards ensuring the sustainability of the project because at present, they lack the budget line to undertake issues regarding the project that are cost-intensive. He added: "Right now, we do not have the budget to maintain the street lights, and we know that the advertisement revenue they are generating from the streetlights cannot maintain them. We would try and work with PURA, NAWEC, and Ministry of Energy to come up with a strategic paper on how the project can be maintained."

The NRA boss who did not downplay the significance of the streetlights in the socio-economic development of the country also disclosed that concerning the urgency of the new task and the challenges involved, his institution would set up a unit to handle the affairs of the streetlights, study the sources of revenue for the project, develop a long-term strategic paper for the sustainability and lobby for a maintenance contract with a credible electrical company which would be performance-based.

Roads construction
Shifting attention from the street lighting project, the NRA director spoke about issues regarding the authority’s work. According to him, the North Bank Region road construction project was completed a few years ago and last year, the NRA undertook a major rehabilitation work to maintain the standard of the road and to avoid further deterioration.  He went on to acknowledge that they have experienced delay in the construction of the South Bank road particularly from Mandinaba to Jarra Soma, which is contracted to MA Kharafi. This, he said is due to contractual issues and the fact that MA Kharafi also had many construction works as it was responsible for the airport runway project. He expressed optimism that now the first phase of that airport project is completed and the contractor adjusted to the increasing demands of the road construction project, work would progress without delay and the road would be completed in due course.

With regards to the ongoing going concrete road project, the NRA boss stated that it was initiated and mainly funded by the president as part of his personal commitment to fulfilling the needs and aspirations of the people. He further revealed that currently there are four concrete roads under construction and many more are in the pipeline. He explained that the roads are constructed in areas that are swampy and are meant to serve dual purpose of drainage and road. He added: "If you look at the concrete roads, you realise that they are in the best interest of the communities they are built. Those communities are swampy and when rain falls, the concrete roads can serve as a drainage facility because water would easily flow to the stream, thereby protecting the community from floods."

He refuted claims that they [NRA] are responsible for flooding in communities because they often construct feeder roads without drainage system. He said: "The problem is that people do build in their own local ways without consulting architects. Most often people build below datum height, and when we are constructing roads, it has to be raised to be either above or at par with datum heights. Here people just build houses flat from the ground and do not backfill their compounds to raise its surface, as such, when we construct roads, we raise it to datum heights, thus leaving compound below; as such, when it rains, water that flows into compounds cannot come out on the roads again. As a matter of fact, when a road is raised, it doesn’t need drainage and even if we build drainage channels along the roads, it is not meant for compounds. The drainage canals we dug are for the water that flows on the roads. So what is important is that people have to be aware of the realities of development and move towards the direction of development. The road construction height should be the height of buildings and unless people heed to that water would always log."

Road maintenance/rehabilitation
The NRA managing director  noted that the authority has been building series of roads across the length and breath of the country and they are doing their best to maintain them. He said that apart from the Lamin Koto-Passamass road, all other feeder roads are in good shape and the government and its technical departments and partners like the European Union have tried and are still trying to network the country with good and quality roads. While identifying funding as their major constraint, he stressed that the government is not falling short in meeting that obligation to the people.

He further disclosed that 2010/2011 road maintenance project has been dedicated to the feeder roads within the Greater Banjul Area. This, he explained is necessary because the roads in the area have not been maintained for the past 15 years. He added that it is time that attention is paid to them to prevent them from depreciating in value.  He however noted that even though some feeder roads like Serrekunda and Bakau have already been undergoing maintenance, they are currently working on a maintenance budget to be submitted for approval by the executive so that they can be able to expand the scale and scope of the 21011 road maintenance programme.