The Road Fund Administration (RFA) has called on policymakers to consider implementing a toll system to address the current funding gap faced by the public enterprise.
According to the RFA Chief Executive Officer, Ali Ipinge, road user charges, like fuel levies, are insufficient to cover maintenance costs.
He says the company will soon experience a shortfall that will only allow it to fund 60% of the required maintenance over the next five years.
“That gap is widening and we are seeing that over the next five years, we will only be able to provide funding up to the level of 60% so we have to look at alternative funding streams such as distance based road charges such as tolling,” he said.
He further said the fund would be proposing a complete overhaul of Namibia’s road funding system in its upcoming 5-year strategic plan.
The plan acknowledges the growing challenge of maintaining the country’s 49,000 kilometres of aging roads.
A key strategy is the implementation of intelligent systems technology to optimise road design, construction, and maintenance. This focuses on building climate-resilient infrastructure.
“We will be launching a 5 year strategic plan this year which talks about the issue of intelligent systems, in other words using technology to better design and maintain the roads but also the new systems that allow for us to ensure that the construction method is resilient in terms of climate change because we are increasingly seeing that,” Ipinge said.
This comes as last year the fund suspended plans to introduce toll roads in the country until further notice citing a non-conducive economic situation due to high interest rates and inflation.
A feasibility study conducted by the RFA had identified 21 roads that could potentially be tolled, generating N$5.8 billion in revenue.
This revenue, the RFA said, could be used to fund capital and maintenance expenditure over five years, resulting in N$7.5 billion in additional revenue to subsidise roads across the country.
