Nearly all major roads in Belarus need overhaul
Belarus Road Authority has been deprived of a special fund, while the money from the budget is enough only to repair roads once in 150 years.
Nearly all major highways require urgent repairs, Aliaksandr Halaunyou, the head of road maintenance department at Belavtodor, told reporters. He said: "After special commission inspected the road network, it was determined that out of 15500 km of roads, 12000 require overhaul. This includes both the physical and moral wear-out of the road surface".
He also noted that Br970 billion was allocated in the national budget for road works, including Br165 billion for the current repairs and Br146 billion for overhaul. With this money, Belavtodor will be able to overhaul 102 km of roads, while 1300 km will be subjected to the maintenance repairs. If the pattern continues, next time these roads will be overhauled in 150 years and maintained in 80 years.
He was supported by Ivan Hurynovich from Goremavtodor, the agency responsible for maintaining and repairing roads ans streets in cities. He said: " Last year, we overhauled 39 km of street and road networks. But the total square of streets in Minsk is 18 million sq. m. We cannot meet our performance targets with this underfunding".
Halaunyou complains that they do not see a way out of this situation. Chinese offer $1 billion as a "road" loan to build a highway from Zhlobin to Homel on condition that the materials, equipment and labor will be Chinese. This is of no benefit to the road agency (they will have no business) and the government which will have to take the loan to employ the Chinese!
The road agency officials propose to amend the Budget Code so that the excise duties that motorists pay at the fuel stations be diverted to the special road fund in order to maintain and repair the country's road network.
Photo by Zmitser Lukashuk:
