6/25/08

Leaking vehicles damage roads, officials say
CHARLES KIZIGHA
Daily News; Wednesday,June 25, 2008 @00:04
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  • Lack of motor vehicle testing and inspection centres is costing the government billions of shillings to repair sections of tarmac roads damaged by oils leaking from defective vehicles and tankers, officials said.

    Roads are vital for the country's social and economic development activities and the government has vowed to tarmac all trunk roads. Apart from passenger buses plying on them, they play a very big role in the economies of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Malawi.

    Almost all vehicles ranging from private saloon cars to light and heavy duty trucks ply on Tanzanian roads without undergoing mandatory inspection simply because there are no such facilities hence avoidable incidents of oil (breaks, defrenture) leakages, driving with worn out ball joints as well as bearings plus major engine breakdowns and road carnages.

    A fully loaded truck and trailer which break down along a high way and stays there for several days damage that section because the road was not designed to absorb that weight. This newspaper's survey on trunk, major roads, double lanes, city and municipal ones showed that there are hundreds of oils patches of various sizes on the roads and beyond their edge plus grease.

    The survey showed further that roads were damaged by jacks when turn boys change punctured tyre(s) mainly of heavy duty vehicles loaded or empty, depending on the grade of the tarmac road. A depression is formed at a point where the jack was placed because the wheel changers never put a wide base under it to avoid the weight to be left on a narrow facility.

    When reached for comment, the Director General of Tanzania National Roads Agency (TAN ROADS), Mr Ephraim Mrema, and Assistant Commissioner of Police Commanding Officer Dar es Salaam Special Zone, Mr Mohammed Mpinga, said separately that tarmac roads were seriously damaged by different type of oils oozing from all vehicles and tractors as well as diesel from tankers.

    Mr Mrema said that different types of oils which ooze from motor vehicles spoil roads because of a chemical reaction between them and the tarmac, all being petroleum products by their chemical composition as final products was different.

    The DG said that such vices shortened the life span of the roads and and it costs billions of shillings to carry out repairs in the long run. "When a jack is placed under a loaded 40 ton truck in order to change a wheel, minus a wide base under it, is like hammering a nail on that tarmac road", he said.

    Mr Mpinga said: "Mechanics work on gear boxes or break systems of heavy and light duty trucks and buses along major roads of the City including Nelson Mandela, Nyerere, Morogoro, Bagamoyo and Kilwa and they let the oils drop on the road instead of taming them in a vessel and dispose the fluid at an appropriate place later".

    The Zonal Traffic Commanding Officer said that there was lack of motor vehicle testing and inspection facilities in Dar es Salaam where vehicles could undergo mandatory checks as tens of such ones were defective.





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    Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
    Procurement Consultant
    Gsm: +250-08470205
    Home: +250-55104140
    P.O. Box 3867
    Kigali-Rwanda
    East Africa
    Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
    Skype ID : Kayisa66

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