By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – The Ministry of Public Works and Transport has embarked on a project to improve roads that lead to the country’s border gates.
The ministry is doing this in order to make it easy for tourists and other people to easily access the country. Another intention is to make Eswatini an ideal country where investors can do business so that employment opportunities can be increased.
Minister of Public Works and Transport Chief Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandwe said his ministry was on a project where it upgraded roads leading to border gates. He further stated that most of such roads had been tarred or paved in some way, to make the movement of people and goods easy.
The border roads that were tarred, according to the minister, were the ones leading to border gates such as Ngwenya, Mananga, Lomahasha, Mhlumeni, Lavumisa, Mahamba, Gege, Sicunusa, and Sandlane. Regarding Matsamo, Minister Ndwandwe said the road leading to that border gate was tarred, but the road needed to be upgraded because motorists had problems driving along that road.
He said that road had many obstacles such as potholes, which needed to be patched. The minister further said his ministry was currently doing a feasibility study on the road leading to Bulembu Border Gate. Minister Ndwandwe acknowledged that the road was still unpaved and made the movement of people and goods difficult.
The minister promised that after the feasibility study, efforts would be made towards sealing that road, reaching places such as Magoga. Regarding the Lundzi Border Gate, Minister Ndwandwe said they were still trying to secure funding to pave the road. Last week, the minister announced that Afri Civils was going to construct the Mvambi-Sigangeni Road for a period of a year from now.
This road is part of the efforts that are being made to seal the road leading to the Lundzi Border Gate. The road from Siphocosini to Motshane, via Sigangeni (D78) is the one that gives access to the road from Sigangeni to Lundzi. The plan is that after that road (D78) has been sealed, the road leading to Lundzi Border Gate will also be sealed.
This effort is made by the ministry after Siphocosini MP Mduduzi Matsebula had, on numerous occasions, moved motions, calling upon the government to prioritise sealing roads leading to the country’s border gates. Matsebula said that would help the country ease traffic in major border gates such as Ngwenya and Lavumisa, among others. Matsebula moved these motions during the 10th Parliament, around 2018 and 2019 and the government has been implementing this motion since that time. Minister Ndwandwe said he was happy that his ministry had already worked on the MR 21 road, leading to Nsalitje Border Gate, as this entry point had been a bit difficult to access because the road had not been sealed.
