At every corner in Lilongwe, you meet workers and earthmovers excavating, pushing or transporting massive quantities of earth.
The fact that we are witnessing the hectic, and somehow chaotic, roadbuilding in the capital city now speaks volumes about how for years, the city has been neglected in terms of expanding its road network.
It could be only in Malawi where crucial roads are left to degenerate or without expansion for years only for the works to start decades later.
In fact, there are those who believe that in the 21st century, our focus should have turned to roads in rural areas, to connect every corner of the country, and not in major cities.
But somehow we postponed development for whatever reason and got ashamed now that while our neighbours were determinedly marching to the future, we remained stuck in wretchedness.
So, Lilongwe is a roadbuilding site, and to some extent, the disturbances are palpable.
They might be worse if rains come before the red earth that is being dumped on the roadsides for the construction works is not covered in time.
On the other hand, the fact that we have been seeing workers and earthmovers on some sites for two years now typifies authorities’ failure to properly plan for public projects.
It appears they roll out the projects without having exhausted all the processes and with no assurance about whether resources will be enough and available in time.
There is also this challenge of implementing several public projects at once only for small portions of the works to be done after resources become inadequate.
In fact, across the country, there are numerous signposts which detail public construction works but there is nothing to show on the ground.
Recently, some people in Rumphi went on bended knees, asking President Lazarus Chakwera to intervene in the construction of a section of the Rumphi-Nyika-Chitipa Road, which has once again missed its deadline with no activity on site.
Well, they must forget about the President intervening for he himself is presiding over a very chaotic system that is failing Malawians on several fronts.
Construction works for the road were launched in 2018. Reports indicate that contractual disagreements have led to the delays in finishing the project.
Money has already been spent on small portions that have been done— which will, of course, have to be redone, meaning the contract price will be way much higher than initially agreed.
That is what failure to properly plan for public projects brings out and it is a widespread problem.
In loads of locations, unfinished public projects stand, some even falling apart or succumbing to vandalism.
There are stadiums, health centres, bridges, early childhood development centres, schools blocks, irrigation schemes and many more whose construction stopped, obviously due to poor planning.
Sometimes, politics is to blame for the chaos in the public construction sector.
Ahead of general elections, governments tend to launch projects which they clearly know will not be accomplished due to lack of resources.
It is an old-style trick which voters are now aware of and will not be cajoled into choosing someone simply because they have initiated projects months to elections.
If all projects were initiated after sufficient planning and budgeting, we would not be having them missing their deadlines several times.
Our unstable currency makes things even worse.
A simple extension of a project will force the contractor to raise the price after the kwacha loses value against major foreign currencies.
And this usually happens when government is dealing with contractors who cannot fork out their own cash to fund the works and claim the money from the client later.
Government must put its house in order and avoid initiating multi-billion kwacha projects without a clear picture of where the resources will come from.
There is no harm in progressing little by little rather than launching many projects at a time only to be embarrassed by failure to meet the deadlines.
Of course, we all know that sometimes projects are initiated simply to create ways of fleecing taxpayers.
That is where even the quality of the works done— that is if they have reached completion—leaves a lot to be desired.
