Boatle-Gaborone road project at just over 53%
Motorists using the Boatle-Gaborone road should brace themselves for another seven months of inconvenience after the Ministry of Transport and Communications confirmed completion date for the whole project to be April 5 next year. This however, will only be so if things go according to plan, with no further delays as was the case at some point during the course of construction last year. The construction project that commenced on March 24 last year entails an upgrade of the existing 23 kilometre stretch between Game City and Boatle from a single carriageway road of two lanes to a dual carriageway road – bitumen standard - of four lanes. Also included is the Boatle interchange project which will be the second of its kind to be constructed in the country after the one in Francistown, commonly known as spaghetti. The grade separation junction at Boatle is beginning to take shape, with construction beams and scaffolding already showing that traffic going directly between Gaborone and Lobatse will flow uninterrupted at ground level, while vehicles coming out of Ramotswa to Gaborone are set to drive overhead before going off ramp into the A1 road. Construction on the road has since last year caused frustrations on commuters whose trips between Gaborone and Ramotswa have slowed from taking 30 minutes to 90 minutes, with those proceeding to Otse, Lobatse and Mogobane taking even longer. The closure of the Boatle intersection in June made matters worse as the diversion roads have resulted in a traffic nightmare. A sizeable number of commuters from both Lobatse and Ramotswa have since resorted to using the morning commuter train traveling between Lobatse and Gaborone in the mornings and in the evenings. In addition, construction of the grade separated junction has forced a relocation of the main Boatle taxi stop to an open dusty patch across the A1 road, a development that has not gone down well with both taxi operators and passengers. The aggrieved felt the relocation was done without consultation and that the location to the new mini terminal posed a risk to the lives of passengers, especially under the cover of both morning and evening darkness. At completion, the road is expected to cut down on congestion, improve safety and even see traffic move faster especially at the Boatle junction where the area had over the years been seen to slow down movement and even cause fatal road accidents. This was more pronounced during peak hours, and the police in Ramotswa had begun to camp there to aid traffic flow on high-density days. Speaking to The Midweek Sun in an interview about the road recently, Ramotswa Police boss Superintendent Keogile Tau decried the current congestion but said he found comfort in knowing that soon the road will be safer and user-friendly. According to Thato Moapare, Public Relations Manager in the transport and communications ministry, progress on the road at the end of last month had been at 53 percent. This she said was against a planned 62 percent. Among the issues that caused delays on the road were the late acquisition of burrow pits as well as the late relocation of services at Boatle junction and Kgale. The project, which is fully funded by government to the tune of P1.069 billion also includes construction of two bridges over Tloane and Metsimaswaane rivers. The project is part of government’s Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) initiative and was awarded in February 2017 to Consolidated Contractors Company of Kuwait, as well as China State Construction and Engineering Corporation. Supervising consultants are Bothakga Burrow Botswana. As at April this year, the number of people employed on the project stood at 522, of which 489 are Botswana citizens and 33 are expatriates.