By Karen Ngulube
The Engineering Institute of Zambia has raised concerns over premature failures observed on sections of the recently upgraded Ndola – Sakanya Road, barely a year after the road was commissioned.
This comes nearly 2 years after, the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, had reported significant concerns regarding poor workmanship and planning on some of the PPP Roads that were being implemented without an independent engineering consultant.
Speaking in a statement made available to the Zambian Business Times- ZBT, the President of the Engineering Institute of Zambia, Eng. Wesley Kaluba, confirmed that a delegation of engineers inspected the road following concerns raised about its condition.
Eng. Kaluba said the delegation included representatives from the Engineering Council of Zambia and members of the engineering technical committee.
He explained that the road project was implemented through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) financing model with the Road Development Agency acting as the contracting authority.
However, the inspection revealed that several sections of the road have already begun to deteriorate.
“We found that the road has prematurely failed in several sections, and this is just about 12 months after commissioning the project,” Eng. Kaluba said.
He noted that the affected sections start from approximately four kilometers from the roundabout near Levy Mwanawasa Stadium and extend beyond the ZAFFICO checkpoint.
According to Eng. Kaluba, the concessionaire, has been patching the damaged sections, but engineers believe this is not an adequate engineering solution where structural pavement failure has occurred.
“These pavements have prematurely failed, and the concessionaire has been patching most of them. From an engineering standpoint, patching is not the appropriate solution where there is structural failure,” he said.
Eng. Kaluba further revealed that the engineers discovered that the project was implemented without the supervision of an independent consulting engineer, a key requirement in infrastructure development to ensure proper quality control and professional oversight.
He explained that in standard engineering practice, an independent consulting engineer is responsible for supervising design approvals and construction works to ensure projects meet the required standards.
Eng. Kaluba also noted that Copperbelt Province Minister Elisha Matambo had earlier observed similar failures during his inspection of the road and recommended that the contractor reconstruct the affected sections rather than rely on patchwork repairs.
However, he said the concessionaire reportedly maintained that the patches were equivalent to reconstruction, a position he described as unacceptable from a professional engineering perspective.
“If there was a qualified independent consulting engineer on the project, he or she would have recommended that the affected sections be ripped off and reconstructed,” he said.
Eng. Kaluba stressed that the Engineering Institute of Zambia does not directly supervise infrastructure projects but provides regulatory oversight over engineering practice in the country.
He cited the Public Roads Act No. 12 of 2002, noting that the contracting authority should not assume the role of project consultant and that independent supervision is essential to ensuring transparency and quality in public infrastructure development.
EIZ has since called for reforms in the implementation of PPP infrastructure projects to ensure independent consulting engineers are engaged to supervise works and prevent premature failures in public infrastructure projects.
