The head chief of Pageri Payam in Magwi County, Eastern Equatoria State, has appealed to the government to speed up rehabilitation of Juba-Nimule highway to easy movement.
“We are hearing that money has been given to the people of tender to rehabilitate the road, but we see the road section at Kerepi is yet to be repaired,” said Margaret Akongo Oliver.
In July 2023, the national government launched the redevelopment and rehabilitation of the single carriage Juba-Nimule highway.
Two months later, the Ministry of Roads and Bridges suspended the roadworks with plans to build a dual carriage.
In addition, the Ugandan government also announced plans to rehabilitate the highway to boost its economy following a request from its traders.
The appeal comes after the deadly accident that claimed four lives along Juba-Nimule highway on Wednesday afternoon in Moil area.
Also, on Tuesday this week, 10 people sustained serious injuries along the same highway after a vehicle they were traveling in overturned.
She blames the tenders or engineers who were awarded the contract for delaying rehabilitation process.
“This is the mistake from the engineers who were given the deal. If you are given money of South Sudan to grade road, do a good job,” she continued.
Chief Oliver attributed the rampant road accidents to poor road and appeal to the national government to improve the highway.
“The road should be good so that goods of businesspeople – who are paying taxes – should reach well without loses. Because vehicles are overturning and delaying on the roads with their goods, they feel so much pain,” she added.
Efforts to reach the national ministry of roads and bridges were not immediately successful.
In September 2012, President Salva Kiir and Susan Page, the then US ambassador to South Sudan, inaugurated South Sudan’s 192-kilometer-long Juba-Nimule Road, the largest infrastructure project ever built in South Sudan, and the young nation’s first paved highway.
The Juba-Nimule Road was the top infrastructure priority of the Kiir administration following the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan’s civil war.
The road reduced travel time between Nimule and Juba from eight hours to less than three hours, linking Juba with Uganda and providing the shortest, most efficient route to the Port of Mombasa in Kenya.
But with what observers would describe as ‘negligence’, the highway got damaged by uncontrolled truck weights and lack of maintenance.