BUJUMBURA January 17th (ABP) – National road number 9 (RN 9), which passes near the COTEBU market towards Mutakura, is in the process of being upgraded to a highway, it was noted on site Monday January 15, 2024.
In Ngagara, district 5 of the Mukaza commune in Bujumbura town hall, road construction machines are located and at work, as well as evacuation trucks belonging to a Lebanese company Khoury Contracting Company (KCC). Engineers in work clothes monitor the work.
The RN 9 was almost impassable due to the potholes which form especially during the rainy season.
That work constitutes a response from the Minister responsible for Infrastructure who, during a meeting on May 15, 2023 with the administration and the population of the Ntahangwa commune, had promised that that road would be rehabilitated.
Mr. Pascal Ngendangenzwa, works engineer, explains that KCC is committed to making that highway available within 2 years even if, he emphasizes, the studies are not yet completed. “We are going to do 6 km for the first phase. But the heavy rains currently being observed are disrupting the work,” he specifies. He calls on users of the RN 9 to take other routes during the period of that work.
The pedestrians encountered in the vicinity of the RN 9 appreciate the efforts of the State for that intervention. “That work is welcome given that since the destruction of that road, movement, especially of vehicles, was almost impossible.”
“That is not the first time that tractors have been parked on that road. Recently the Burundi Road Agency (ARB) came with its machines, but it still remains impassable. We ask government authorities to monitor that work carefully. “, confided a young man we met near the RN 9.
Note that that highway will be known as “Boulevard Lieutenant Général Adolphe Nshimirimana”, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.