KUKHANYA’S E35M ROAD MESS

MBABANE – Believe it or not!  A portion of the E35 million MR3 public road – between Manzini and Matsapha, which Kukhanya Civil Engineering Constractors finished rehabilitating seven months ago, will be redone, the Times SUNDAY has established.

This is despite the fact that the public may have thought that the frustration that came with prolonged travelling time caused by the traffic congestion was over but the opposite is true.
They will find themselves in the same predicament, which ranges from arriving late at work, missing business meetings appointments to income losses on the side of public transport operators.

It has been disclosed that the state of the recently finished road is so terrible to the effect that the contractor – Kukhanya Civil Engineering Contractors – has to redo a particular portion of it where there are some defects.

Some motorists, who frequently use the road, whom the Times SUNDAY talked to, attested to the fact that the state of the MR3 public road, especially the portion from Mahhala to Logoba, leaves them gnashing their teeth in frustration as their motor vehicles shake and bounce over the uneven humps that fill the road surface especially along the left lane.
Other than the bumpy portion of the road, the upper surface of the road had peeled off in some parts. The areas of concern to motorists, which has also been noted by government engineers, include the off-ramp intersection road at Eteni leading to the Matsapha International Airport and University of Swaziland respectively.

Along that section, motorists are forced to drive through three very large eroded areas on the road where the asphalt has peeled off.
Motorists driving through the off-ramp have been exposed to the defects on the road which are detrimental to their motor vehicles.
Another area of concern affecting motorists is the portion of the highway which runs from Logoba towards the Mahhala Shopping Complex.

The road is littered with lumps and uncomfortable bumps and as a result, a majority of motorists take over the right lane to avoid driving along the badly done left lane of the road.
“What is of great concern is the fact that when we cross the flyover bridge in Matsapha,  the untouched portion of the road is in good condition compared to the parts that were resurfaced,” motorists observed.
One female motorist wondered why government decided to refurbish the road in the first place as it was in a better condition before the whole exercise.

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport has come out to state that all apparent defects on the road will be rectified by the contractor under the Defects Liability Period (DLP), as per contract provisions.
In construction, a dlp is a set time just after the completion of a project wherein a contractor is obliged to return to site and attend to any defects before it could hand the project to the developer. A typical defects liability period lasts for 12 months.
As such the ministry, through its Principal Secretary (PS) Makhosini Mndawe, has declared that presently, the project has not yet been handed over to them and a completion report has not been submitted by the contractor.
This in essence means that all defects that have developed on the said road will and must be rectified by Kukhanya as the contract holder at no extra cost to the taxpayer.

“Once all the work has been completed in compliance with the terms and conditions of the contract, the completion report will be compiled at the end of the defect period.”
According to estimations made by this publication, the defects liability period will end in August 2017. This is because construction of the road ended in August the previous year.
 An expert within the ministry also confirmed the assertions of the PS.

He stated that government engineers within the ministry currently had their own assessment of what the condition of the road was. He said the report only outlined the level of comfort of motorists as they drive along the road. He said the ministry would use that assessment to decide what can be done to fix the existing defects.
When asked what will happen if the portion of the refurbished road riddled with lumps and ridges could be found unsuitable for use after the defects liability period, the expert stressed the fact that  if the road had a defect, it would need to be fixed.

“Any job that has a defect needs to be fixed, we cannot just live with a defect, and it needs to be corrected by the contractor,” said the expert from the ministry.
Efforts to get an official comment from Kukhanya Civil Engineering Contractors Managing Director Fungai Mathaba proved futile as he only responded to queries from this publication through his Personal Assistant, Sikhulile.
Mathaba referred all questions to one of the Consulting Engineers for the project Dlamini Gibbs Consulting Engineers.

Lloyd Dlamini of Dlamini Gibbs Consulting Engineers also refused to make an official comment when contacted on the matter.
 He said as sub-contractors, they were not allowed by their client – the Ministry of Public Works and Transport – to engage with the media on projects awarded.
Other than Dlamini Gibbs Consulting Engineers and Kukhanya, according to Mndawe, other contractors which were involved in the project were ZMCK Consulting Engineers. The consortium was contracted to rehabilitate the MR3 public road in terms of the FIDIC conditions of contract and the COLTO standard specifications.

Mndawe further explained to this publication in detail that there were three different processes which were used in the rehabilitation of the road.
The PS explained that some parts of the existing road asphalt layers were rehabilitated and finished with a final new asphalt surface on top of the reconstructed layers.
He said other parts of the road were rehabilitated by removing the existing asphalt road surface and replacing it with a new asphalt surface. “The last process used by the construction company was the repair of the failed section of the existing road followed by resurfacing with an asphalt wearing course.”

The ministry explained that technically, there are no potholes that have developed on the road but instead there was a peeling of the upper layer from the surface.
The ministry said this was what was currently taking place along the Eteni off-ramp road.  “The ministry would like to assure the public that for all its projects, it endeavours to achieve complete adherence to the required specifications and the project have defects provision  and contracts do provide provision for the matter in question in no exception,” he stressed.
He added that it was also important to note that all construction projects have defects provision and contracts do provide provision for rectification of such.

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