Road markings are the least of planners' problems, as they seek to open up isolated communities in rural areas.
Maintenance is not a word that exists in Swahili and anyone who has ever had a double puncture from a jagged pothole will testify that something needs to be done about the roads. But there are a number of reasons why those potholes are there: firstly, in terms of culture, Tanzanians are traditionally used to repairing by rebuilding anew so the concept of maintenance just wasn't there, and secondly, donors providing money to build roads rarely provided the funds to maintain them as well. The assumption was that looking after the shiny new asphalt could be taken care of by government, when in fact it simply didn't happen.
A third factor in the state of the roads is also the high level of waste through corruption, although this is hardly just a local issue, as roads being built below specification and then being washed away by the first rains is an issue that has troubled much of the continent.
There is then a clear need for a regularization both of the structures to award contracts and of systems to maintain the road network. In the middle of last year, a semi-autonomous body, the Tanzania National Roads Agency (Tanroads), was established to fill the potholes, build new roads and make sure everything was above board.
"What we need to do is to have much simpler and less bureaucratic systems so things move faster and are transparent," says Olav Ellevset, the softly spoken yet tenacious Swede who runs Tanroads.
Ellevset is a man who knows the road network like the back of his hand and he sees his role, in the two years in which he will head the agency, as making sure sustainable systems are in place to have efficient procurement, delivery and maintenance of an expanding road network. Critically, he is also aiming to decentralize decision-taking as much as possible so that procurement is not paralyzed by central control.
Tanroads is now monitoring over 700 contracted works projects and is cooperating with outside agencies such as the Federal Highways Administration both to develop cross border organizations and to foster reliable contractors. The Ministry of Works is examining three projects for private investment but the low volume of traffic suggests that strong guarantees would have to be in place to attract outside investors. Apart from a handful of such instances, road development will increasingly be in the hands of Tanroads, as it makes the transition from semi-autonomous to autonomous agency by next year. It is already in charge of the $60 million maintenance budget, which only provides the means to focus on the basics. At the moment this means keeping the surface in a state of reasonable repair — there are few white lines and little street lighting outside urban areas, despite the fact that it is estimated that up to 2 percent of GDP is lost through road accidents.
Management say this is an example of the debate over allocation issues, as it is difficult to justify white lines or lighting when in the south of the country, many of the national roads are essentially tracks and are impassable in the wet season.
And this issue hits on one of the most pressing concerns for road planners — opening up transport links to rural societies, as the link between rural poverty and road infrastructure is all too apparent. Roads are the key for everything from getting produce to market, to children attending school, to the sick receiving medical care. As the roads bring development to previously isolated rural villages, new horizons could begin to open for some of Tanzania's most needy communities.
