By: Nyima Sillah
The management and board members of the National Road Authority (NRA) on Monday appeared before the National Assembly Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) for scrutiny of their 2018 activity and financial report.
Momodou Senghore, Managing Director of NRA said they have taken note of all the issues that were mentioned and that they will make sure that are fully compliant with the constitutional requirements.
“We will do our best and recuperate fully with the membership of the public enterprise committee to provide all clarification that may be required in the session,” he said.
He said the National Road Authority will continue to work towards the fulfilment of its mandate as prescribed by the NRA Act,
According to him, NRA capacity and efficiency has improved in recent years, nevertheless it still faces numbers of challenges which includes limited capacity of contractors, scarcity of materials, the need for institutional reforms, support to improve the road safety at the development of the NRA safety policy action plan and others.
Senghore expressed their awareness on the high level of accountability expected as they deliver the government objectives for good roads that impact the lives of Gambians to better access to schools, market and other source of activities.
In the light of the challenges they are facing, he said NRA still continue to look to implementing new strategy to further enhance the Authorities performance.
He therefore recommended that NRA should increase training of board and staff, contractors to improve quality of maintenance and supervision of the road maintenance work.
“The government should increase funding for the road maintenance program as this will serve the countries future cost, nothing that NRA should also invest more on research to be able to cut down cost when it comes to implementation of roads and maintaining the infrastructure we have,” he said.
He said the government has invested heavily in the expansion of the country’s road network to create an appropriate network and this very significant investment continues.