DID you ever realise that Kitwe would be totally cut off if the Kafue Bridge – on the Ndola-Kitwe Dual carriageway – were to be washed away or, God forbid, blown up by deliberate sabotage?
As a frequent traveller between Ndola and Kitwe, the gateway to the rest of the Copperbelt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), I had never thought of this looming danger until fairly recently when a friend, Warren Sokoni, who now resides in the sprawling city that has given Zambia three Republican Presidents in Frederick Chiluba, Michael Sata and now Edgar Lungu, brought it to my attention.
He said each time it rained ‘cats and dogs’ he often wondered what motorists and transporters ferrying critical supplies (including food and medicines) from either Lusaka or Lubumbashi in the DRC, for instance, would do to get into Kitwe if ‘something’ drastic or mysterious happened to the bridge because there is no alternative entrance into this city, which is at the heart of Zambia’s copper mining and gemstone industries.
The inescapable truth is that motorists and transporters conveying imports from East Africa and the rest of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would find themselves marooned on the southern side of the Kafue Bridge close to what in the 1960s used to be the O.B. Bennett Speedway, while those returning from the New Copperbelt in the North-western Province and DRC’s Shaba province would similarly be stranded on the opposite end of the highway – and undoubtedly in a winding queue stretching as far back as the Copperbelt Agricultural and Mining Show Grounds in Wusakili Mine Township.
To get into Kitwe, motorists from the South would be compelled to drive all the way back to the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium roundabout – a distance of 60km – to use the Ndola-Mufulira-Sabina link road.
Conversely, motorists returning to the Kapiri Mposhi Junction en route to either East Africa or Lusaka from the Northwest and DRC, would be forced to do the same but via the Sabina-Mufulira-Ndola road, thereby increasing the wear-and-tear of the severely battered 45km Mufulira-Ndola stretch.
In the hey-day a trip to Mufulira from the Copperbelt’s provincial capital of Ndola used to take less than an hour, but it now takes three hours due to the dilapidated state of the 45km highway that partly straddles Congolese territory near Sakania border post.
To forestall the crisis, Kitwe city fathers and planners would be well advised to take maximum advantage of the Mufuchani Bridge when completed to diversify the city’s inlets and outlets. With the new bridge in Nkana East in place, it should be possible to develop a link road from Kafironda Explosives factory off the Mufulira highway.
The route could be plotted in such a way that it passes East of Garnetone to, say, Kamfinsa on the Kitwe-Ndola Dual Carriage way. I believe the new route would offer Kitwe not only an alternative artery into the city’s teeming Central Business District (CBD) but it would also go a long way in decongesting traffic at the Kitwe-Mufulira T-Junction, which is presently a huge bottleneck.
An equally import spin-off is that any Kafironda-Kamfinsa detour would go a long way in diverting traffic and easing the pressure on the only bridge and artery into Kitwe and Kalulushi from Solwezi, Chingola, Kasumbalesa and Mufulira, etc.
The Ndola City Council (NCC) has de-gazetted the Dola Hill forest area and will soon start allocating plots for residential homes, commercial and industrial purposes. That, coupled with the planned relocation of the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International (SMKI) to the Dag Hammarskjoeld Memorial Site near Twapia Township, means the area between Kafironda and Dola Hill will, in the near future, become a hive of activity that would require a direct boulevard as the region will become attractive to investors and other developers.
Also, in the context of Pave Zambia 8,000kilometres, is it not possible to construct a road to link Chambeshi with Butondo Mine Township in Mufulira West? In terms of critical path analysis, I believe such a route would be a viable short-cut for travellers and transporters from East Africa wishing to use the Kasama-Luwingu-Mansa-Mufulira roads to get to Chingola, Solwezi and Kasumbalesa in the DRC.
Anyone familiar with the terrain would agree that using the Levy Mwanawasa Bridge and a refurbished Chembe-Mokambo Pedicle road, would be a lot faster and cost-effective as the motorist and transporter from the Great Lakes Region and East Africa would no longer have to drive all the way from Mbeya/Nakonde to Kapiri Mposhi – a distance of almost 1,000kilometres – in order to reach his/her destinations on the Copperbelt, North-western Province or the DRC.
It is against this scenario that one would definitely welcome as good news President Edgar Lungu’s recent announcement that the Chingola-Solwezi Road, which is in a sorry state, is to be upgraded (hopefully to a dual carriageway because it leads to one of the country’s economically productive regions).
Zambia Railways Limited (ZRL) could also jump on the ‘bandwagon’ and construct a railway line, running parallel to the outlined Chambeshi-Butondo-Mufulira-Mansa route, thus linking Solwezi and other new mining centres in the province to the Great Lakes Region, via TAZARA at Kasama in the Northern Province.
With the envisaged Enoch Kavindele railways up and running Zambia would have an extra outlet to the sea at Lobito Bay on Angola’s Atlantic Ocean coast in the West. The area has unlimited economic opportunities.
Zambia currently depends on Dar-es-Salaam Port in Tanzania for its exports and imports. We need to diversify to avert hidden dangers.
Anyone who has travelled by road from Lubumbashi to Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa via Botswana and Zimbabwe will appreciate what the Patriotic Front (PF) Government is doing in terms of bridge and road construction. Those of us who were there when Zambia won independence in 1964 wish the UNIP administration could have done the same or even more during its nearly 30-year reign.
You simply have to cross the Zambezi River and drive from the Kazungula border gate to Francistown via Nata, for example, to grasp what countries such as Botswana have done to open up former desolate areas like Pandamatenga (which is located deep inside the elephant-endowed Chobe National Game Reserve) to modern development.
At Panda, as it is popularly called, there are filling stations, shops, a military camp and gigantic grain silos that both commercial and peasant farmers use to store their produce for purchase and distribution by the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB). There are also schools, including nurseries, and health posts, etc.
Nata, formerly a sleepy little village and gateway to Maun, the capital of Botswana’s new Copperbelt in North-western District, has sprung to life with modern infrastructure, petrol stations, shops and motels to cater for tourists and other travellers. All these are distinct possibilities for Zambia.
The proposed Kazungula Bridge over the Zambezi River to link Zambia and Botswana will certainly open up the Botswana countryside to further investment as the project includes the construction of both road and railway facilities on both sides. More jobs will be created for the people, while for the traveller and small-scale businessperson, it will be possible to travel by either train or road transport between the two neighbouring SADC countries and beyond.
Then there is the Trans-Kalahari Desert Highway that links Botswana to Windhoek, the Namibian capital, and Walvis Bay port on the Atlantic Ocean in the West.
A railway line linking the two countries at Walvis Bay has also been planned for construction soon.
And moving on to South Africa, a traveller entering the country from every direction is greeted by commercial farms dotted everywhere on both sides of the roads and railway lines that lead to Park Station in the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD).
I recall the fact that the Government ran into difficulties during the construction of the GauTrain railway line between the City of Gold and Pretoria, the capital, as its route entailed passing through private property. Some of the landlords were naturally so angry and uncooperative they had to be persuaded and compensated later.
The landscape was similar in Zimbabwe until 2000 when White-owned farms were repossessed by the ZANU-PF government for redistribution to the dispossessed Black majority.
But generally speaking, travelling between Chirundu, Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo and even City of Mutare on the border with Mozambique in the southeast, gives you an idea what a good road network can do in terms of enhanced rural development in any given country.
In this regard, ZANIS, the Zambia National Information Service, I must say, is doing some remarkable work, informing Zambians about rural development and other events taking place round the country. Its clips evoke memories of the ‘Newsreels’ that were compiled by its forerunner, the Zambia Information Services (ZIS) edited by ex-broadcasting luminaries like Cosmo Mlongoti, Charles Muyamwa and many others.
Its film from North-western Province when President Lungu toured the area last week brought to light the hardships transporters between Solwezi and nearby Kipushi Mine in the DRC are encountering due to the poor road network.
A distance that often took less than 60 minutes now lasts four hours.
That it, too, requires upgrading cannot be overemphasised if Zambia is to play its expanded role in the envisaged regional economic integration.
So how does Kitwe come into all this? The City of Kitwe occupies a central place on the Copperbelt. All the country’s mineral exports and imports, including machinery for the growing mining operations in the North-western Province and DRC, pass through Kitwe.
As a result, Kitwe cannot afford to have all of its eggs in one basket because if the Kafue Bridge near the former ZamTam depot in particular were to mysteriously disappear, the impact would be far-reaching and devastating for everyone, including investors.
Zambia’s copper exports, the major foreign exchange earner, would never find their way to overseas markets through South African ports at Durban and Port Elizabeth or Mozambique’s Beira. And without foreign exchange Government coffers will run dry, which is a recipe for disaster of immense proportions.
Everything will grind to a sudden halt as Government will not have enough revenue to undertake its ambitious programmes designed to develop the country.
So wake up Kitwe and avoid self and national asphyxiation.
Comments: please send to: alfredmulenga777@gmail.com