. . . Says the Rainy Season is the Worst Period for Roads
By Uche Amunike
Just as we are at the peak of the rainy season and roads are naturally wearing out as a result, the agency setup for maintaining the state roads in Anambra has intensified her efforts in fixing all bad roads and filling up the potholes where needed so that motorists can drive around with ease despite the damages caused by the intensity of the rains.
Speaking to Fides in an exclusive interview in his office, the Managing Director of the Anambra Road Maintenance Agency (ARMA), Engr Emeka Okoye described the rainy season as the worst period for roads because the rains weakened the asphalt which gave rise to the decision of the agency to use interlocking bricks as seen in most of the areas where maintenance works are ongoing presently.
In reaction to whether the interlocking bricks were better than the Asphalt, he did explain that it was actually slower to patch roads with the Bricks, but however averred it served the roads better during the rainy season. His words: ‘with Hot Road Asphalt, we can do 200 square metres in a day, but with bricks, we can only do about 20 to 30 square metres a day, per team. However, it is better because the Bricks prevent the potholes from increasing in size.’ This, he explained, was why the agency has decided to get more equipment and increase the number of the teams.
He assured that the CBN road and environs that was recently worked on, but which the heavy rains had worn off the asphalt, was among the roads that will be patched by ARMA anytime soon, with interlocking bricks. He explained that it was part of the projects that ARMA would embark on with her own interlocking bricks as they would start producing theirs by next week instead of purchasing from the open market.
In his exact words, ‘Using the interlocking bricks to fill up pot holes started this year. It’s something no one has done before and the feedback from people has been encouraging. In Lagos, you can actually do a full road with interlocking bricks. So, when we start producing our own interlocking bricks and make use of the new teams we’re forming, we can then patch a lot more roads around the state this rainy season. When the dry season is here, we’ll go back to Asphalt. We’ll patch all the potholes in the internal roads. That’s our job’.