Widening our roads and building better ones is a priority; Bihire

A draft law regulating Rwanda’s road network is in place now. This is the first time the county has ever had such a law, something the absence of which in the past has caused the kind of chaos one sees in Rwandan towns beginning with the capital.

Infrastructure Minister Linda Bihire. (file photo)

This is the kind of chaos (kavuyo) that the draft law intends to regulate and bring to an end.  

Even in affluent areas like Nyarutarama there are no plans for a proper road network in the neighborhood so that all those big houses have been built but there are no proper demarcations to separate them, roads passing through them are too narrow in places, a bit wide in others and it is common to find that in this rich neighborhood there are narrow alleys that serve for streets so that two cars cannot bypass each other.

Infrastructure Minister Linda Bihire does not use the word chaos when we interview her about the draft law, preferring to use more diplomatic language. But it is easy to see this is the kind of chaos she and the government set out to address when she initiated the new law and proposed it go to parliament.

“We have to plan for the future,” said the minister in her office at Kacyiru.

“We cannot have a situation where for instance in Kigali the roads will be badly congested; so if we are to widen the roads and have to properly axpropriate haphazardly built property the law has to be there and it has to be strong,” she said. 

The law defines a road up to the last detail, including what a national road is, City of Kigali roads, district roads, dimensions of roads; it defines what specific roads are; it provides for the laying of utility lines and cables and water pipes; it is specific about appropriation in the interests of the public; it is specific that anyone building on land demarcated for roads will be expropriated and so on.

But some people are bound to feel threatened by this law – that is those individuals bound to lose property built on land designated for roads. We interviewed a few (who aren’t aware of the draft law yet) and questioned them after telling them of the new law.

“It is obvious if the government wants to expropriate us to build better roads that it is a good thing,” said one owner of a house built about two feet from a road who declined to have his name published. “My main fear is that if they expropriate my house I may never be compensated.”

The new law however has provision for expropriation.

Under the subheading “Widening of roads”, it says: roads in the national road network which do not have the width determined for their respective class at the coming into force of this Act shall be progressively corrected to have them acquire the respective width, where circumstances so allow. Widening of a road shall be done after compensation of all people who will be affected by such widening. Compensation shall be done in accordance with the laws related to expropriation in the public interest.

Growing numbers of cars

These days Kigali is catching up with neighboring countries as far as traffic jams on its roads and streets are concerned. The main artery in and out of town, the ‘Sopetrad’ road is becoming a nightmare during rush hours. The same is the case with the airport road, all the way from the MTN roundabout at Kimihurura, to the Chez Lando junction where congestion is at its worst, to Giporoso.

“This is not a tenable situation and we have to act fast to alleviate it,” Minister Linda Bihire told The Rwanda Focus.

Widening the roads as soon as possible and making sure they are properly maintained is a priority at Mininfra, she said.

“The country cannot look backwards; we have to build for the future and providing proper infrastructure is one of the main responsibilities of a good government,” said the minister. 

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