THE Engineering Institute of Zambia (EIZ) has urged government to go further than patching potholes by rehabilitating roads which have become dangerous.

Chief Government Spokesperson Chushi Kasanda recently disclosed that the National Road Fund Agency (NRFA) had released K4.5 million to the Road Development Agency (RDA) to fix potholes on some roads.

And in an interview, Thursday, EIZ president Abel Ng’andu welcomed government’s move but stressed that patching potholes was a temporal measure.

He said the money which had been released to fix potholes was on the lower side.

“Patching potholes is temporal. It is just to improve riding quality of the road and also to prevent accidents and all that. So it is a temporal measure but it is not a solution at all. The solution is to rehabilitate the roads so that they can have a proper riding quality and safety improved. Release of the money towards pothole patching is okay, we welcome it but we urge the government to not only [patch] potholes but to make sure that they rehabilitate these roads which have now become very dangerous,” said Ng’andu.

“From the money that has been released, you can see that maybe it might not be given to contractors. If you look at the money which has been released, under RDA, they have what they call force account meaning they can patch potholes themselves. So that’s what it looks like because the money is on the lower side. From just the amount, it means that the money which has been released is not intended to engage contractors but they want to engage RDA to do it under force account.”