At least 154 kilometres of roads currently under construction in the City of Kigali will have been completed by the end of December, a City Hall official has confirmed.

The city vice mayor in charge of Economic Development, Parfait Busabizwa, told The New Times that the roads include 105km of neighbourhood roads constructed at the cost of Rwf44 billion and 54km of major roads.

"With neighbourhood roads, we are at 70 per cent of completion because some works are still in final touches in some areas,” he said.

He said that construction works are on course on major city roads and are mainly being undertaken by Chinese contractors, these include the Kanogo-Rwandex-Sonatubes-Giporoso road.

The biggest part of this road, according to Busabizwa, is complete and what remains is the small section between Kanogo and Rwandex where works were interrupted by the rerouting of fibre optic infrastructure.

"We have other roads such as those from downtown to Nyabugogo, and the construction of a new bridge connecting Nyabugogo and Gatsata, where activities are yet to be completed and we hope that by December, they will have been completed,” he said.

Other major roads include those from Nyanza in Kicukiro District to Rebero-Kimisange-Nyamirambo which are at 70 per cent of completion.

The other one is the Nyacyonga-Gasanze-Batsinda road whose construction is underway.

All these works, according to Busabizwa, will be completed in three months.   New roads in pipeline

Meanwhile, during the interview, the vice mayor said that besides those that are supposed to be concluded by December, there are other roads they intend to start on next year.

"The new roads we plan to construct include that from Sonatubes to Gahanga whose works will start soon. This road will also help the public to easily connect to the new international airport in Bugesera,” he said.

The official said that the city is also constructing the road connecting Giti cy’Inyoni to Karama passing behind Mount of Kigali to Nyamirambo which will allow travellers from Southern Province to connect to Nyamirambo without passing through Nyabugogo and the Central Business District.

"Works on all these roads involve tarmacking those that have been marrum, while others require expanding to dual carriage to decongest city traffic. These are crucial to the city’s development and easy movement of people who deal with their daily businesses,” he said.

He added that for the roads’ sustainability, more drainage systems to contain water that may damage the roads are being constructed, adding that local company NPD has also been contracted to maintain the city roads.

"Of course, the most sustainable solution is to harvest rainwater in our homes. In addition to that, we have to make sure trees are planted along the roads to help suck in runoff water. For instance, last year, we planted about 160,000 trees along the roads and across in the city,” he said.

Bigger transport projects

According to the vice mayor, the studies are still underway to show where ring roads would be constructed to decongest the city so that vehicles from one part of the countryside to the other may use them without having to go through the city.

He said the studies will, among others, determine the cost of expropriation.

Busabizwa also revealed that the draft study on a Bus Rapid Transit system to locate and dedicate roads to high capacity buses has been completed but could not unveil details about it as it awaits finalising by technicians and expropriation cost.

The idea is to construct and dedicate some roads to big buses so that it allows faster transport services as well as reducing the use of private cars within the city, especially in the Central Business District, he said.

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