Global chambers of commerce to meet in Durban

'Road building boom must continue' JAMES HALL MBABANE – Swaziland’s first toll roads will open in about a year’s time. Public Works and Transport Minister Elijah Shongwe predicted that road user levies would go into effect mid-2006. “We are beginning it as a test, to see if toll roads are viable in Swaziland,” Shongwe told Parliament last week. The first toll way will likely be established on the main Mbabane-Manzini highway, which begins at South Africa’s Oshoek border and passes the Sidwashini Industrial estate outside Mbabane and the Matsapha Industrial Estate outside Manzini. Other new highways would charge user fees later if the initial programme is found successful, the minister said. Swaziland’s road building boom must continue, he said, because the law requires it. “For a dirt road to be upgraded to bitumen standard there has to be more than 250 vehicles per day using it. Today, most roads are carrying such traffic,” Shongwe said. Only a shortage of funds prevents Swaziland from having an entirely tarred national highway system. Budgetary constraints are also hindering Swaziland’s urban centres from tarring all their roads in the wake of an upsurge in automobile ownership and road freight traffic. Industrial site roads heavily utilised by large trucks also require expensive upkeep from the public works budget, said the minister, who was questioned by MPs on higher allocations for his ministry in this year’s national budget.