Workmen on roads should be blamed for the poor roads- MP

A legislator Joel Gabbuza has said the workmen hired to do the road surfacing and bridges.

"The issue that I would want to draw the attention of the Executive is the issue of checking on our bridges, which could have assisted us a lot in averting the natural disaster and flooding that we eventually had," he said.

"Once in a while I take time to go under most of our bridges.  Bridges are designed to withstand vertical horizontal pressure, but when bridges pillar collapses, they cannot withstand the horizontal pressure from the flowing water.  This being the case – that is why you see most of our bridges that eventually got flushed away by the floods was not an issue of the floods but an issue of poor workmanship and lack of inspection of some of the Government infrastructure."

He said in relation to this issue of disaster preparedness, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development indicated to them that the rains caused a lot of damage.

"We should not blame the rains but the workmanship on our roads because there is nothing wrong about rains.  In various countries like the tropical rain forest, they have plenty of rain every day, more than what we receive but their roads are still standing.  Roads can be made even under water.  Two days ago, we saw on the international media, some clever countries designing bridges that even go under water," he said.

"So, water is not an issue when it comes to complaining about whether the road will go or not.  It is a matter of how you design your roads.  So, we would appeal to the civil service to ensure that when they do some of these designs, they must meet the standards so as to meet the worst possible disasters that might emanate in the country."