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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the reconstruction of the country's principal road
DURANI, 19 May 2003 (IRIN) - A major project to rehabilitate the 1,200 km main highway connecting the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the southern city of Kandahar and Herat in the west was launched last November.
"We'll help develop a modern infrastructure so that Afghan entrepreneurs will be able to move products from one city to the next, and so that people will be able to find work, they'll be able to put food on the table," pledged US President George Bush at the time. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has stated that reconstruction of the country's principal road system is key to Afghanistan's economic recovery.
The multi-million dollar three-year project is one of the most ambitious reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. It is a joint effort funded by the US, Japan and Saudi Arabia and was expected to employ thousands of local labourers. But half a year on the project gives work to just 100 people, and to date only 2 percent of the work has been completed.
"It has been more than seven months since that project was officially launched, but so far, no part of the road has been asphalted," Qodratollah Vardak, a civil servant, told IRIN in Durani (Dowranay), a district of the central province of Vardak about 40 km south of Kabul.
The prestige highway project currently extends little farther than Durani, from where the new work on the road was launched. The road from Kabul to Durani was rehabilitated during the era of the Taliban. The project is estimated to cost $250 million, with $180 million pledged. Most people involved in the new project say donor money has not been forthcoming, which is why progress has been so slow. "They [donors] are slower than the Taliban, who asphalted this road from Kabul up to this 43-km point," Vardak asserted.
Currently, the Afghan Reconstruction Company (ARC), a subcontractor to the giant US civil engineering firm, Louis Berger, is involved in the project. ARC says it will complete the next leg of the project, a stretch of 50 km, by the end of 2003.
"We are only responsible for the first 50 km, which will be completed as per our contract by 30 December," Shahid Maqbul, ARC's chief engineer, told IRIN in Durani, adding that ARC had been contracted to carry out this part of the work for US $20 million. "I don’t know who will take on the next part of the road," he added.
More than two decades of conflict combined with a prolonged lack of maintenance have resulted in damage to long sections of the highway, and also to its bridges, embankments, cuttings and culverts. Meanwhile, in this poor, landlocked, country with few navigable rivers, and virtually no railways, road transport remains the only way of getting around for most people.
As matters stand, after the tarmac runs out in Durani, travellers have to proceed for another 450 km on a badly potholed road to reach Kandahar, and then yet another 700 km to reach Herat.
"I am totally exhausted, and my wife and three-year-old child need to be taken to hospital," said a traveller, Abdul Hafiz, who had just arrived in Durani from Herat after a 27-hour bus journey. He said the bumpy road combined with dusty weather had made his wife and child seriously ill. "While proceeding towards Kabul from Kandahar, I was expecting to see rapid work on the road and a great portion of it reconstructed, but unfortunately I witnessed nothing promising," he added.
The Asia Development Bank (ADB) has conceded that the ambitious road project will not be completed by the end of this year, but emphasised that travel time would be reduced when the road is repaired up to Kandahar. The ADB is the co-focal point for transport rehabilitation in Afghanistan. "The project cycle takes some time, which means that before work on the road is undertaken you have to make a short study taking all factors into consideration," Ravi Khera, a consultant to the ADB's Afghanistan Emergency Rehabilitation Programme, told IRIN in Kabul.
As Afghans await their transnational highway, a Louis Berger representative told IRIN there were good reasons for the delay in implementing the project. "We are negotiating four more contracts with foreign firms to build an additional 340 km to Kandahar," said the representative, who declined to be named. He added that insecurity was also hampering survey work, the road traversing some of the most troubled and insecure parts of the country.
Earlier this month, two convoys working to clear mines and unexploded ordnance from the sides of the road were ambushed, with one person killed and five others wounded. The incidents led to the suspension of all mine-clearance operations suspended on the highway, again slowing down project implementation.
According to the World Bank, the Afghan road network comprises about 6,000 km. The plan is to rehabilitate around 3,300 km, consisting of the ring road leading from Herat to Kandahar-Kabul-Mazar-e-Sharif-Sheberghan-Meymaneh and back Herat, and six international routes to neighboring countries.
Themes: (IRIN) Economy
[ENDS]
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