By Landing Colley
Honorable Bai Lamin Jobe, Minister of Transport, Works and Infrastructure has clarified a proposed sum of D800 million for roads construction in urban and rural communities.
His clarification comes after lawmakers asked ‘whether the construction is not a political plot’ during a debate over government supplementary appropriation 2020 Bill
In his response, Minister Jobe said: “This is not a political plot.” He added that they are using the name rural and urban out of convene but they never classify roads as rural and urban. Usually we classify road according to their function whether they are tertiary, secondary and primary.”
According to him, they have strategy they are pursuing and that is to complete the primary road network which is almost end and the second phase is to start with the secondary and tertiary roads.
He expatiated on what they started within the last three years and want to complete the primary which is about one thousand kilometer starting from Essau (North Bank) to Passamass and from Banjul to Koina.
He added that “We also have three bridges linking to North Bank and South Bank road which are primary road network.”
He revealed that total number of roads in the country is about 4000 kilometers, adding “some road carry only small number of vehicles, some carry much large numbers which have to be treated like network, and out of the 4000 road mentioned almost 2, 500 of those road are tertiary road.”