Monrovia – As the clock ticks to the end of this government, on Thursday, Public Works Minister Gyude Moore made a presentation of what appears to be a turn over note and a complete overview of Liberia road development over the years and the country road development plan beyond 2017.
Report by Al-Varney Rogers [email protected]
Public Works Minister Moore said, a total estimated cost of 119 billion is needed to complete primary roads in Liberia.
The Works Minister put Liberia’s road network financing gap at $2.6bn adding that 2016 GoL budget allocation to roads was $20m.
“2016 donor contribution to roads: US$129.2M. not all of the US$150M available for roads annually goes to rehabilitation of primary roads, total estimated cost to complete primary network: $119 billion Priority order based on economic and social returns under the road development corridor strategy” Moore added.
Minister Moore said, between 2009 up till 2015 the amount of money Liberia and its partners have spent on road and transport infrastructure is over seven hundred and fifty million adding that if the amount is updated to include 2017 figures it will exceed a billion dollars.
The Public Works Minister revealed that most of the roads in Liberia are fair, poor and very poor.
“The blue lines are for roads that are in excellent condition, the green lines are for roads that are good, yellow is fair, orange is poor and red is very poor, most of the roads in the country are yellow, orange or red,” Moore said.
Minister Moore averred that 2.3 million Liberians lack access to all weather roads adding that when the rain starts close to half of the country’s population is cut off.
Moore said, the presentation is to promote coordination amongst partners supporting the road sector and to show a singular narrative of how Liberia intends to build the country infrastructure.
Moore continued: “In term of prioritizing what road we (Liberia) do first and second, these are the things that inform us, first is the population, with minimum amount of money, we wanted to place infrastructure in a place where it will have the greatest impact on a larger number of people.
The Public Works Minister said, Liberia’s long-term road network planning strives to advance inclusive growth by following development corridors as identified by the Liberia Agriculture Transformation Agenda designed to maximize Liberia’s agriculture value chains.
Moore said, 1,189km of primary roads have yet to be paved and have no concrete funding discussions.
“57% of unpaved roads in Liberia are in poor or very poor condition, and will require rehabilitation or reconstruction to improve them to a maintainable level following a cost estimate of US$1M/km, completing the planned primary network will cost – $119b Including secondary and feeder roads, this cost estimate increases to $2.6b”, Minister Moore said.
Moore said the Road Fund Act was created to institutionalize a culture of maintenance, so that Liberia’s investments in roads are sustained over time.
“The Road Fund Act will raise funds through the collection of road user fees, the revenue of which will be ring fenced for road maintenance and rehabilitation 60% of funds will be reserved for road maintenance,” Moore said.
“The remaining 40% of the funds collected by the Road Fund are to be used for rehabilitation and construction of new roads the Center will maintain control of all road rehabilitation and construction until capacity is built at the county level,” Moore said.
The Public Works Minister said, over time, under the Road Agency, maintenance of secondary and feeder roads will be managed by counties, who will apply for project financing from the Road Fund.