Traditional leaders at Hewe in Rumphi have expressed concern over the poor condition of the Rumphi-Hewe road saying people in the are failing to access Rumphi District Hospital.
Village headman Kalindamawe of Kanyenjere in Hewe sounded an uproar on the issue during Malawi24 recent visit to his area.
The traditional leader said the poor condition of the road is posing more challenges on the people living in his area, hence the urgent need to renovate it.
“The road is very bad. Especially at Chankhalamu,” said Kalindamawe. “It’s impassable there and somewhere after Bembe area. During this rainy season we struggle in terms of transport.”
On his part, village headman Mowa, whose village borders with Kalindamawe, echoed his colleague’s outcry saying the road hampers his subjects in many aspects including business and health.
“The state of the road is a health hazard in that referrals of critical cases to Rumphi district hospital are at halt. We have ever lost some relatives because, due to bad roads, we couldn’t manage to take them to the district hospital,” he said.
“The bad road condition also affects our businesses here because we usually order things from Rumphi to here. With the bad roads. It’s a problem.”
The chiefs claimed in an interview that they have tried engaging political leaders on the matter for some time but nobody has taken heed of their requests.
“Even if only the most difficult places like Chankhalamu and Bembe are fixed, that will be fine,” said Mowa.
During its visit, Malawi24 established that there is a road project dubbed Rumphi-Nyika road upgrading which is currently at halt.
In Bolero area, Mota Engil construction company mounted its site but our preliminary investigations indicate that they stopped working on the road some three months ago.
Efforts to establish reasons, from the company’s media relations office, proved futile but other officers who spoke to our reporter on strict condition of anonymity revealed that they suspended the project because of rains.
There was, equally, no immediate response from the roads authority on the issue.
