Neno only district which has no tarmac road for the past 57 years—say concerned citizens as they petition government to act

The petitioners at Parliament on Thursday morning

By Duncan Mlanjira

Concerned citizens of Neno on Thursday stormed Parliament, which is in session, demanding that the government should consider upgrading the road to the district to tarmac standard.

Carrying placards — of which one said “Neno is the only district which has no tarmac road for the past 57 years” — the concerned citizens presented their petition through Parliament and was received by Member of Parliament for Neno North, Thoko Tembo together with legislator for Mwanza South, Joyce Chitsulo.

Both legislators agreed with the petitioners and appealed to the government to consider bituminising the road which is in very bad shape.

Neno has one of the worst roads in the country and last month and going into March, residents there faced difficulties for over a week to access the main roads of M1 and M6 due to the bad condition of their road after heavy rains.

The concerned citizens are operating as Neno Road Advocacy and its chairperson, Robert Ngayiyaye is quoted as saying the district is blessed with a lot of agricultural products but farmers fail to access better markets because of the condition of the road.

The road, from the main one towards Mwanza, goes to the Neno Boma and all the way to Tsangano in Ntcheu along the Lilongwe-Blantyre M1 Road.

In November last year — during official ground breaking of the construction of a state-of-the-art community vocational training colleges in Neno by the Ministry of Youth & Sports, Neno District Council deputy chairperson, Councillor Mark Ngwangwa took the opportunity to ask Minister Ulemu Msungama if he could also relay to the authorities the need to upgrade dusty stretch of the road to the Boma.

He had said it as his vote of thanks after appreciating the artistic impression of the projects’ blue prints — saying having a good road to the area will match with the beauty of the state-of-the-art structure the area will be provided with.

Observation by this reported at that time was that the 42km stretch is tarred half way from the junction along the road to Mwanza and it takes close to one and a half hours mostly because of the bad state of the dusty stretch.

Transportation is a huge challenge as the few buses that are available, operate according to schedule — twice a day and the alternative mode of travel are bicycle taxis (kabaza), whose cost is a staggering K4,000 from the junction along the Mwanza Road.

Councillor Ngwangwa had said the people face deep challenges during rainy seasons to transport their farm produce as the dusty party of the road becomes impassable.

“We therefore make a humble appeal if the road could be tarred up to the Boma to ease our transportation challenges,” he had said. “This technical centre is not only going to offer special entrepreneurship skills to our youths but will also beautify our area as we have seen from the pictures presented by the contractor.

“We, the people of Neno are very grateful and appreciative of government’s effort to make technical and business skills accessible to our youths at such a local level,” he had said.

The vocational college project, funded through a MK2 billion loan and grant from the African Development Bank, is set to uplift the faces of the four communities — Neno, Ngara in Karonga, Mbandira in Nkhotakota and Naminjiya in Phalombe.